16 May 2023
Hello everyone,
Well, the season is over and we finished last weekend with our Club Dinner with a crowd of approximately 150 attending. It was great to see so many old faces, and especially the team of 1997/1998 (Under 20s) who had 43 members of their squad at the dinner. My thanks to Dave Quinlan, Russel Rochford, and David Chawke for their efforts in arranging. To all of the speakers, thank you very much for giving your time to the event.
And so to the season. It's lovely to sign off on a season that saw promotion gained back to 1B for the men, and the winning of the AIL for the women. However, the other teams enjoyed notable success on the field and will hopefully be inspired to achieve even better things next year. At this juncture, I would like to say thank you to all the following for their efforts in making this year a successful one for the club:
Rugby
To all the coaching staff, backroom staff, management, and physios and s/c for the huge amount of work getting the players ready for match day with all of the teams in the club.
Executive
To all members of our Exec who worked very hard to keep the club running off the field, and with a special thanks to our Chairman Pat Finn.
House/Grounds and Office
To Conor and Paul for running the day to day activities and keeping the place well - thank you very much. To Molly in the office, we appreciate all the work (sometimes landing on your desk at the last minute).
Social Media
To Hannah, Molly, and Fergus - thanks for all the work for keeping Blackrock in the forefront of everyone's eye.
Bar/Catering
To Dermot and his crew in the bar, and Mick Mooney and his team in the Kitchen: thank you for all the hard work, especially on match days.
Minis/Youths
To Mike Conn, Michael Kavanagh, and all the other coaches and managers - thank you for all your hard work with the next generation, especially with your end of season party last Sunday.
Golf
Again a thank you to the golf committee for arranging a wonderful day out in Elm Park in April.
Sponsors
Thank you very much for all your support when we came looking this year. Please God, you will all be on board next season.
So finally, I wish Paul Flavin all the best for his term next year. I hope he enjoys it half as much as I have.
Best wishes and see you next September.
John
John Colclough
President
Blackrock College RFC