Athy visit Galway for debut appearance in All-Ireland Junior Cup
Athy RFC, pictured here celebrating their 2025 Provincial Towns Cup triumph, will play in he Energia All-Ireland Junior Cup for the very first time this weekend.
Athy RFC are preparing to make their debut in the prestigious Energia All-Ireland Junior Cup when they travel to Garraun Park this Saturday to take on Galway side, Tuam.
2024/25 was a phenomenal season for the Kildare club. It marked Athy's very first campaign in Division 1A of the Leinster League and culminated with the club capturing the coveted Provincial Towns Cup for the first time in over 40 years thanks to a dramatic victory over County Carlow.
Athy finished last season in fifth place in the league, meaning they just missed out on qualification for the All-Ireland Junior Cup; but when 1A winners Bective Rangers secured promotion from the Leinster League to the All-Ireland League, their place in the Junior Cup became available and was soon filled by a still-celebrating Athy.
The illustrious All-Ireland Junior Cup was introduced in the 2005/06 season and is played on a straight knockout format consisting of the top four clubs from each province.
Leinster clubs have dominated the tournament since it began, winning 12 out of 19 finals, including three-time winners Ashbourne and Tullamore, two-time winners Enniscorthy, and reigning champions Bective Rangers.
The trophy has gone to Ulster five times and Munster twice, with Connacht still in search of their maiden victory.
Tuam would love to be the very first winners from the western province, but they have won just once in their three opening games of the season, with a one-point victory at home to Dunmore in the opening round of the Connacht League.
They then conceded nine tries in defeat away to Creggs and went down by 12 points away to Ballinasloe last time out.
Athy come into this game off the back of their first win of the season last weekend where a hat-trick from Aidan Henry helped them over the line at home to Wicklow.
That result was badly needed following a dreadful start to the season that saw the Kildare club lose their first four games in Division 1A of the Leinster League.
Speaking about the club's form so far this season, Athy's Director of Rugby told the Kildare Nationalist: "The first four games in the league - and in the Hosie Cup before that - it was the same kind of things: there was some very good attack, some very good play, but our place kicking has been poor, we've left an awful lot of points behind us, and the lineout and defence as well have at times struggled.
"Like that Tullamore game (where Athy led from the 5th minute to the 75th, only to concede three late tries to lose the game), we played great rugby. We really should have been out of sight and should have been game over after an hour.
"But we left the opposition in the game, then conceded some soft scores and lost the game. It's happened a good few times this year that we've scored more tries than the opposition, but still lost the game.
"The Wicklow game last, we worked hard during the week on a few of the elements that were holding us back. The defence certainly improved an awful lot. The line-out was still a struggle and the place-kicking was still very much a struggle.
"We didn't convert any of our five tries and missed a couple of penalties. We left 19 points behind us that would have made it - even half of those would have made it a comfortable victory.
"The good thing is that we know what's holding us back. The harder things to get right, like the attack and things like that, we think are going well. Like last season, we just need to work on some of these elements, like defence, line-out and kicking. Hopefully when we get those right, we can be a bit more consistent."
Looking ahead to tomorrow's game, Henry says the club as a whole are massively excited: "We've got a lot of supporters going down. There are some of them gone today, doing the two nights down there.
"We have a squad of 30 gone down. We're going to stay down there.
"It's something that's really new and fresh for the club. We've never been in this competition before. Up to a year or two ago, really, it was something we could only have dreamt about being in it. Like I said, there's a big excitement and lots of people are making the trip down."
And what of the opposition? "We know very little about Tuam. We know they're a good club. We know they've been in this competition the last couple of years," he said.
"As far as playing-wise, we know very little about them. We're kind of okay with that. We're happy to focus on our own performance, rather than worrying about the opposition too much."
Athy, as a club, have embraced a very family oriented environment, with the senior men's and women's teams each including among their playing ranks brothers, sisters and cousins from a range of families, including Henrys, Fennessys, Farrells, Downey, Sheedys and more, all of which the Director of Rugby says lends itself to "a very tight-knit" atmosphere at The Showgrounds.
