Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools
LAST week it was Christian Brothers College Cork, this week it is Presentation Brothers College Cork. You can’t mention one without the other.
Over the years they have kept apace with each other from decade to decade with both producing a plethora of great rugby names – past and present – while when it comes to the Munster Schools Senior Cup just one title separates them. CBC have 30, PBC 29. PBC have also claimed 29 junior school cups and have twice pulled off the double – in 1995 and 2007.
If CBC is the lair of the Murphy rugby clan, PBC is the Kiernans – Tom and nephew Michael – while modern day stars have also included Ronan O’Gara, Peter Springer and Peter O’Mahony. In total PBC have spawned 22 Ireland internationals and six Lions with two of them – Tom Kiernan and O’Mahony – captaining the tourists.
It is also where that most astute of rugby coaches Declan Kidney both learned the game and cut his coaching teeth, more of which anon.
PBC made a slow start in the Munster Schools Cup and didn’t claim their first title until 1919 but since then they have been a constant factor. Bar a purple patch in the 1990s there has been no period of dominance as with many other great Irish schools, but they have always been there or thereabouts.
One particularly notable year was 1957 when they had two future Lions in their back division – Tom Kiernan and Jerry Walsh. They had played together three years earlier when PBC had won the junior cup and at senior level they were too hot to handle as Crescent College discovered in the final.
Curiously, Kiernan initially couldn’t make the Munster schools team – Walsh was preferred to him at full-back – but on the morning of a match against Ulster his great friend had to drop out and Kiernan took his first step on the representative ladder.
It was the start of a considerable career with 59 Ireland caps over 14 seasons and two Lions tours – both to South Africa, in 1962 and 1968. He skippered the tourists in the latter and famously scored 35 of the 38 points they garnered in the Tests.
Walsh was mainly known for his thunderclap tackling in midfield and toured New Zealand with the 1966 Lions. He scored just one try in 26 Tests but it was a beauty, the winner against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1967, his last ever Test before retiring to concentrate on his career as a doctor.
Kiernan went on to contribute massively to both Munster and Ireland rugby and was a founding father of the Heineken Cup competition. His greatest rugby moment after retiring though was surely masterminding, as coach, Munster’s famous win over the All Blacks in 1978.
Interestingly there were two fairly recent products of PBC playing in the Munster backs that day – Moss Finn and Jimmy Bowen – who had been equally good footballers as rugby players while at the school, playing in the PBC Xl that won the province’s football championship.
Finn was an Ireland Schools fly-half before switching to the wing where he won most of his 14 senior Ireland caps. The twinkle-toed Bowen had already won three caps by the time of the All Blacks game and it was his collection of Tony Ward’s chip and pass onto Christy Cantillon that made the Munster try. Alas he was beginning to suffer from knee injuries and six operations later had to finally bite the bullet and retire.
Possibly the next big star to emerge from the school was bigkicking fly-half/centre Michael Kiernan who help PBC to a title in 1978 when they beat CBC in the final although the following year, when he won Ireland Schools caps, Kiernan was unable to prevent CBC claiming a revenge win. Kiernan broke into the Ireland side in 1982 and went on to win 46 caps becoming their main goal kicker midway through his career. He also played in three of the Tests for the 1983 Lions. His son Paul, a fly-half, skippered PBC in 2014, while his uncle on his maternal side was Ireland wing Mick Lane who appeared in 17 Tests for Ireland and played in two Tests for the 1950 Lions.
Future Munster and Ireland coach Kidney – now beginning to work his magic with London Irish – cut his teeth as a coach at PBC where he had returned to teach after being a student there just a few years previously.
He arrived back at the school as a Maths teacher – he switched to a careers guidance role after a few years – and started his coaching years initially with the U13s with one of his first charges being a young whipper snapper scrum-half Peter Stringer.
Kidney had been no great player, but he was from prime rugby stock – his father Joe was a president of the Dolphin club – and he quickly found the winning formula at PBC, masterminding four successive Munster junior cups and then four senior cups in five years.
Much as he loved the school, there were fresh rugby fields to conquer. While at PBC he coached Ireland to the U19 World Cup in 1998 – they beat France in the final in Toulouse – and then he turned his attention to Munster. While at Munster they won two Heineken Cups and then during a spell with Ireland he finally guided the “golden generation” to their 2009 Grand Slam.
Two members of the Slam team were his former pupils Stringer and O’Gara. O’Gara won a junior cup medal in 1992 and a senior cup medal in 1995 at PBC when he captained the side.
More recently O’Mahony skippered PBC to victory over CBC in the 2007 final just before taking up an academy contract with Munster while Simon Zebo was from that year group as well although as a schoolboy he shone equally in GAA and athletics.
Most recently there was a 29th title in 2017 and an opportunity to go ahead of CBC when the two schools met in the 2019 final. Alas for PBC they lost that one 5-3 so there is work to do later this season when the cup gets underway again.
Latest News
Jacques Vermeulen: I must prove myself again
British and Irish Lions
Dewi Lake still dreaming of becoming a British and Irish Lion
The best betting sites
You must be logged in to post a comment Login