Clontarf's Conor Kelly out to banish the ghosts of 2023 in Sunday's league final
If you play for Clontarf there's a good chance you've experienced the high and lows of winning and losing Energia All-Ireland League finals. Their outhalf Conor Kelly is a case in point, having been a replacement in the defeats of 2019 and 2023, while scoring 19 points as the starting 10 in the win over Terenure three seasons ago. He knows which one he prefers.
'That was a great day all right. It is absolutely, one hundred per cent, the highlight' of his career, says the 23-year-old who has played for the Ireland Under-18 and Under-19 sides. But representing a parish and a community, among friends and family, and winning silverware at the end of a 20-match campaign over 10 months is different.
'I think that's the special thing about Clontarf. It's why people come there and stay there so long. It's more than just a team.'
But it's also true that if finals are the best days to win, they're the worst days to lose.
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'We've erased the memories of 2023 as best we can,' says Kelly ruefully in advance of his fourth final, when Clontarf meet the holders Cork Constitution at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday (kick-off 4pm) as the second half of a double header featuring the women's final between Railway Union and UL Bohemian (1.30pm).
Kelly was deservedly the starting outhalf on the Ireland Club XV's win over Portugal in Lisbon last month. An ever-present this season and the top flight's leading points scorer by a distance with 185 and an 85 per cent kicking ratio, Kelly has been critical to 'Tarf reaching their ninth final out of the last 11, excluding the two postponed pandemic-affected seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Kelly hails from Portlaoise, where he started playing mini-rugby at the age of six and is part of a strong contingent from there in Clontarf; as well as Kelly, there's Jim Peters, James Conroy, Willie Reilly and, until moving to La Rochelle last December, Richie Whelan.
Kelly's dad, Aidan, is treasurer in Portlaoise RFC but despite this commitment he, Kelly's mum, Niamh, uncle Declan, sisters Gillian and Alison (who plays with Ballincollig), and other family members attend Clontarf games regularly. His parents did miss last week's 17-15 semi-final win at home to Lansdowne due to a holiday Kelly senior had booked months ago.
Clontarf's Conor Kelly and Dylan Donnellan celebrate after their game against Lansdowne last Saturday. Photograph: Tommy Grealy/Inpho
'He was thinking of cancelling it, which wouldn't have gone down too well with mum. But I got them on FaceTime in the dressingroom after the match, which was brilliant. Mum's family, interestingly enough, are all Dolphin, all Cork people, so they have two reasons to shout for Clontarf.'
Always an outhalf, Kelly had his dad as his coach on underage sides with Portlaoise through to under-14s, at which point he went to Cistercian College Roscrea. He was injured toward the end of his transition year when Roscrea won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup for the sole time in 2015 and played in the side which lost the final a year later to Belvedere.
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That meant plenty of slagging at his expense when moving to Clontarf after school, a choice prompted by contact from the journalist Brendan Fanning and made easier by Clontarf's long-time coach Andy Wood also coaching the Leinster Under-19 side.
'There were very few outhalfs in the club and there was a route to playing AIL as quick as possible.'
He was two years in the Leinster sub-academy as well as Leinster and Ireland Under-18s and 19s sides, and his outhalf contemporaries were David Hawkshaw, Harry Byrne, Ben Healy and Jake Flannery. 'A lot of guys who went on to bigger things,' says Kelly with a chuckle, but he has no regrets.
'I had opportunities to go to the UK when I finished up in Leinster but I was two years into an engineering degree at that stage, and I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice. And to be honest with you it's not something I regret.
'I'm quite happy with how my life is and where my rugby is. I'm really enjoying playing with Clontarf and in the AIL every week. It's such a high standard and when you can do that and balance it with work, it's great.'
Clontarf's Conor Kelly kicks the ball in the Terenure College vs Clontarf match.
Photograph: Andrew Conan/Inpho
Having completed his degree, Kelly enjoys the busy nature of being a project manager in Dublin Airport, 25-30 minutes away from his home in Clontarf.
Now 23, this is his seventh season as such with Clontarf. He won a Celtic Cup with Leinster A when, as he puts it, 'Dan Sheehan ran amok every week'. But winning an AIL with Clontarf three seasons ago was comparably more meaningful, as would repeating the feat next Sunday.
'In a way it means more. You're involved with it for the season. You're playing with your friends every week. It's not just the players on the pitch, it's the people behind the bar, the people who come to home and away games. And it's a social outlet as well. That's what makes it more special.'
'Tarf finished just four points above Con and won both meetings this season, by 20-16 in Temple Hill last October and 15-13 in Castle Avenue in February, but both games went down to the wire.
'This is going to be no different,' says Kelly. 'We beat them down there in the last play of the game and we were incredibly lucky to beat them in the last play of the game in Clontarf as well. We know exactly what they're going to be. They're massively physical, they've been there and done it last year. We've had a big turnover in the last two years so we probably don't have the experience of people playing in the final.
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'But it's going to be incredibly tight. I'd be very friendly with some of the Con guys on and off the pitch, so I'm really looking forward to it.'
Including those two meetings, Clontarf have won five matches with the last play of the game, which tells them that this Sunday will be ferociously tough, but that they've come through such examinations before.
As Kelly puts it: 'You get that belief that when it's tight you've been here before and done it, and that you can do it again with guys that put their body on the line every week for the club and for the team. That helps as well.'
It must do, all right.
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