Murphy looking forward to Newbridge College’s Leinster Senior Cup campaign after gut-wrenching defeat

Newbridge College Senior rugby Head-coach Johne Murphy is excited about the upcoming Leinster Senior school’s cup and is content with his side’s recent league campaign. Murphy’s side reached the Leinster school’s league final recently, for the third year in a row. The Kildare men were narrowly defeated by Gonzaga, following a late drop goal, by Daragh O’Dwyer. The Kildare men were beaten on a scoreline of 22-19. This was Gonzaga’s sixth league title in a row.

The former Munster player believes that the agonizing nature of the defeat can mentally strengthen his side heading into the cup, “if they learn from the experience.” 

In a game played in poor conditions, Newbridge got off to the perfect start and for large periods of the game, it looked like the title was heading to county Kildare. Murphy said they used their league campaign to blood players and to develop a style of play, however the professional rugby player, did state that they wanted to win the league and they were disappointed to lose the final.

Despite a positive league campaign, the former Leicester Tigers player believes his side does have a lot to improve on, if they are to go deep in the cup this season. Murphy’s side came second in their group in the league and Murphy was “disappointed” by their only group stage defeat, that led them to come second in the group. However, it appears that inspired Murphy’s side as they recorded two extremely impressive wins in the quarter-final and semi-final. Their semi-final win over Roscrea was “a great win”, according to Murphy.

Murphy stated that his side balance the educational side and the rugby side of their lives quite well and they “have no issues.” 

The Kildare side’s head-coach, said that “we’re not like many American schools that make players have certain grades, if they are to play. But we do have rules around discipline in school and that”.

Newbridge will be expected to go deep into this year's cup as they have four Irish underage internationals and have a plethora of players that have represented Leinster at underage level but a difficult first round tie after being paired again with Gonzaga.

This season’s Leinster Senior school’s cup final will take place at the Tallaght Stadium in Dublin and Murphy thinks it is “brilliant” that the final is being hosted at the home of League of Ireland soccer club, Shamrock Rovers.

Murphy said, “I played there myself with Ireland “A” during the Autumn International series and it was a great experience”, he also stated that he likes how the supporters in the ground, in the stands, are so close to the pitch.