As well as learning new skills, meeting Leinster players, making new friends whilst having lots of fun – each player will receive an official Canterbury of New Zealand Leinster Pack which includes a t-shirt, ball, boot bag and water bottle.

An early bird rate of €70 is available for children who enrol before the 1st June. After this date the cost of attending the camp will be €89 per child (€80 for additional brother and sister). You can book a second camp for your child for just €50.

Speaking at the launch of The Herald’s Leinster Rugby Summer Camps, Leinster centre Andrew Goodman said, “This is one of the team’s favourite events of the summer as it’s a great chance to meet the young players of Ireland!

This is a great way for children to get involved with the game of rugby whilst also obtaining key life values such as team work, commitment and integrity; and also become more aware of the importance of physical fitness. All this while developing and fine tuning skills such as passing, tackling, evasion and kicking and of course having great craic!

“I wish I was six again!”

Adding comment, Elma Beirne, Domestic Marketing Executive at Leinster Rugby said, “We are delighted that the Herald has agreed to come on board as title sponsors of our Leinster Rugby Summer Camps.

“The Herald and Leinster Rugby already enjoy an excellent relationship and this new sponsorship agreement further strengthens those bonds and reaffirms the Herald’s commitment to Leinster Rugby.”

For more information log on to www.leinsterrugby.ie/camps or contact Caroline Keane, caroline.keane@leinsterrugby.ie

The U14 Bs won the Leinster Schools-Youth Plate competition the previous Thursday beating Old Wesley in Donnybrook in a fine display of attacking rugby. The squad, coaches and parents will finish their season with a deserving BBQ in the club. Congratulations to all involved.

U14 Squad and Coaches

The Killer Bs (U14s) have reached the final of the Leinster B League and play Old Wesley at Donnybrook on Thursday 2nd May – KO is 7.15pm. They are a terrific side and need plenty of support.

On Bank Holiday Monday (May 6th) the U14 As host Skerries RFC at Castle Avenue in the final of the Leinster Schools/Youth Cup. Kick-off is 6.00pm. A win on Monday will see our boys win the Treble for the second year running. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Letter from Fr. William Stuart:

In January 2013 I was in Northern Lebanon as part of an international group assessing the Syrian refugee situation. The principal aim of the mission was to set up a peace and reconciliation center to win the peace when the guns have stopped. (See Relief and Reconciliation Syria)

While there I came across 500 Syrian children being “educated” in a disused school. They have some Syrian teachers but as they are unpaid they will not stay. They have no resources and no educational supports. While the situation is not unique it is unassisted by any national or international NGO and will not be into the medium to long term.

Upon my return home I decided to do something about this school. I thought If I could provide the funding to secure some teachers for these 500 kids (aged approx 8-13) it would, at least, provide tuition during 2013 and prevent further deterioration in their numeracy and literacy skills.
I want to raise funds to make whatever inroads possible. I hope to enable the employment of 15 teachers at a local rate of $800 per teacher, per month. Additionally, the children and the school needs resources, text-books, copy books pens etc. Monies raised over the coming months will determine the extent of assistance we can provide.

I am planning a further and more detailed assessment-of-need trip in later April, at my own expense. I am fortunate to have the assistance of a local “fixer” who is regularly employed by the French Catholic channel 24. (a fixer is someone who provides reliable local information, has access to people that you need to talk to, translates when necessary and generally prevents you having to learn local lessons at considerable time and expense). His fee is $120 per day. I will need him for not more than two days.

In conclusion, I would be most grateful and appreciative if you can support this project, maybe organise a fund raiser, come to the Abbey Tavern on March 8th or just make a donation. “Schools for Syria” will not end the conflict, right wrongs or make any significant difference but it may prevent a tiny number of Syrian children from being rendered literate and unemployable into the future.

Please, do not hesitate to contact me for further information.

Thanks for reading.

William Stuart.

St. Paul’s College have organised an Exhibition Match in memory of Ronan O’Donovan, (SCT

Captain 1982) to be played in Clontarf Rugby Club on 4th May. A Junior curtain-raiser

between St. Paul’s College and Clontarf Rugby Club will kick off at 5:30 p.m. The main event,

featuring the SCT 2009-13 v. SCT ‘Old Boys’ will begin at 7 p.m.

There will be a BBQ, tuck shop and ice cream stall with face painting throughout the event.

The main presentation by the O’Donovan family will take place at 8:30 p.m. on the upper

deck of the Clontarf Clubhouse. A raffle will be held after the presentation for prizes kindly

donated by shops and businesses in the Clontarf area.

Admission is free and promises to be a great family day out for all past, present and future

pupils of St. Paul’s College. Our thanks to local businesses and Clontarf Rugby Club for

making this special event possible.

More details on: www.stpaulscollege.ie/rugby/?page_id=1241

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/147193602103862/?fref=ts

Organised by The Rugby Committee & the Parents’ Rugby Committee of St. Paul’s College

Both the Cricket & Rugby Clubs would like to thank you for your tremendous support given to the “Bull Walk” in 2012. The figure raised after expenses was in the region of €26k.

This was spent as follows;

• Clearing of old floor tiles and skips

• Cleaning down of wooden ceiling and beams

• New floor tiles from main entrance into main bar area

• New curtains and carpets throughout main bar

• Painting

• New gas fired central heating system to main bar

• Upgrading the open fire at the lounge

• New large screen televisions in the main bar

• New sound systems in the main bar and function hall areas

• Framing of new memorabilia on the main bar walls

• Labour costs

We hope that you all had a chance to enjoy the new facilities over the last six months and in general the feedback has been very favourable. The two Clubs have decided to come together and “Walk” again to raise the funds needed to complete work on phase 2 of the renovations.

Works still outstanding are as follow;

• New furnishings in the main bar

• New Lighting

• The working side of the main bar and counter area

• Entrance lobby refurbishment and new doors.

The “Bull Walk” will take place on Sun 28^th April @ 3pm over the same route around Clontarf. This event was enjoyed by over 300 members both young and old from both clubs last year. There will be a free burger and pint for all those who join us on the 27th. We look forward to seeing as many members from both Clubs, including their youth sections and their parents who would be most welcome with there “sponsor cards” filled out and as ever there will be night time entertainment in the bar for all those who still have the energy!

There will be a free raffle for all participants who return a card with at least €50 sponsorship. Prizes include – 2 Tickets for November Rugby Test against New Zealand, corporate tickets to Cricket Ireland against Pakistan in Castle Ave in May plus more.

All enquiries can be made to Damaris in the Club office by email crfc@indigo.ie or by phone (01) 833 6214

Richie Lane opened the scoring with a penalty after three but then Con gave notice of their power by camping in our 22 and refusing to yield until they had forced a score from out half Johnny Holland. Tarf’s dominance of possession yielded a beauty to Tom Byrne after a superb break and offload from Killian Lett. Unfortunately we made a dog’s dinner of the restart and Con , true to form , camped in our 22 and didn’t leave until they scored. In the second half Mick McGrath added another for Tarf and from that point on the pressure on the home side began to tell as the visitors upped the physicality on the wilting Tarf side. With ten to go they scored through second row Brian Hayes after some weak defense at the side of a ruck and when they added a penalty to their tally Tarf were 4 behind with little time to play. They did pile it on though and were building phases under the Con posts when a knock on ended the home supporters hopes and the game.

The proceedings started with Clontarf gifting the visitors two tries which they took with the élan of a side that hadn’t been tackled in the game yet. Clontarf responded with two beauties after patient phase building and all looked set for a comfortable home win. After half time we tacked on another for 19 14 and then someone hit the funny button and everything went to pot. Handling , tackling , control , composure , decision making …….all went at the same time …… Pretty much everyone on the sideline morphed into the 1945 Mayor of Hiroshima ……. All you could hear was “what the FXXX was that ?” ringing around the ground as Tarf struggled to no avail with the task of reestablishing structure to their game. They may as well have been trying to herd cats . Unfortunately the efforts came to nothing but more errors and Dolphin took full advantage of our distress and scored three tries from our untypical confusion.
Hopefully all is washed from the system now and we can approach the game with Con in a frame of mind  more appropriate to the effort the squad have put in this year.

For neutrals in attendance there was spectacle galore with 7 tries, 2 disallowed tries, an almost perfect interception by a tight head prop and enough twisted knees and ankles to grace a jitterbug convention. At one stage there were so many corpses lying around it looked like pictures of the Somme.

Clontarf will have mixed emotions. From the positive perspective they will be happy that they managed to deal with the Lansdowne power game and put them to the pin of their collar for the full 80 minutes. From the negative they will know that had they been more accurate with their handling and crisper in defence in the first half, they had a real shot at winning this game. And it would not have been a steal.

In their 13, Mark Roche, Lansdowne had a real handful of a player who managed to break two tackles in the first half which led to two critical tries albeit with a little help from the referee who managed to miss a glaring forward pass leading to the second score.

At 14-3 down Clontarf needed to rally and did so with a superb maul for a try to Frank Cogan. This set the tone for the game with both attacks dominating in an end to end, you score we score contest. It reminded me of the end to the film Rocky 2 with both fighters dropping the sexy, dancy stuff and just slugging each other ferociously until one fell. Simon Crawford nicked a beauty under the posts and Collie O’Shea confirmed what a dangerous player he is with a score that kept ‘Tarf in it until the end.

That made it 27-25 and still Clontarf were coming again. The final try to the home side summed up the day with Clontarf breaking brilliantly from defence right on full time only to lose the ball in contact for a try to the Champions and a final score of 32-25.

So congratulations to Lansdowne, their captain Ross, and President Dermot McCarron on a special year.

After a successful season, this is an opportunity to recognise the dedication and hard work given by our teams and playing members. There will be many awards plus a new Clontarf Hall of Fame 2000 which will award players for their loyalty and commitment over the last decade.

Partners/wives are welcome. The evening will kick off at 7pm with a drinks reception in the upstairs bar followed by dinner at 8pm.

Dress code: Semi Formal / Jacket & Tie

There is a limited capacity so please book now through the club office or bar.
Tickets are €45 each.