'Our lads never backed down' – Sam Fogarty
By Kevin Egan
Marist College rugby head coach Sam Fogarty knows more than most that nothing is ever guaranteed in sport.
As a player, he scored a try in the 2018 Junior Cup final win over Garbally College, but in part because of the impact of Covid - which meant that team never got to try their hand at winning the 2021 senior crown - the senior cup medal he craved never came.
This year he guided a group that also came in with junior success behind them, and who were also earmarked as the competition favourites before a ball was kicked. Winning the league cemented that status, and when they surged into an early lead last Wednesday, the TUS Midlands student knew better than to presume that seeing out the win would be straightforward.
“We ended the first half at 14-3 up so that was a good position, but in fairness to the Grammar, they put two scores on us straight away, like the good school that they are, to put us under pressure,” he told the Westmeath Independent.
“Our lads never backed down, they kept scoring. That’s something they’ve been able to do all year is move the ball, attack the game and score tries. That’s what they did, and it was what they had to do to win the game.”.
After seeing off Sligo Grammar’s first comeback through tries from Thomas Cotton and Andrew Henson, a strong reply from the 2024 cup holders forced them to go again with one final surge.
“It was exactly that, it was like they had to win the game three times,” Fogarty said.
“But the lads knew that we were going to have to go to the very end, and we planned for that all along. We rotated a good bit to give a couple of lads a rest and then got them back into the game. Once they had a bit of rest they were full of energy again. I’m so proud of the players because more than anything else, this was what I asked them to do. To keep going, play right up to the very end, and that’s exactly what they did.”
While he has been a calm guiding hand throughout the year, rarely animated and always even-handed in his actions and reactions on the sideline, as his players moved towards the clubhouse to pick up the trophy, the emotion of seeing his school and his team finally reach the top of the tree was evident.
“I’m a former student of the Marist, we never got to a senior cup final during the time when I was in the school,” he explained.
“For the last four years we’ve been knocking on the door, we had a semi-final and then three finals in a row, and thankfully it’s our time now.
"These boys deserve it, they’ve worked so hard, and by that I mean the entire squad. Every year we’ve had a good team but this is the first year in a while that we’ve had a complete squad. Tom Sheehan missed out on today and that’s hard on him, he’s been a fantastic player for us, but with the squad we have this year, we were able to overcome that and still play our usual game.
“It's a testament to the players, their families, the school, the management, physios, local clubs, so many people have contributed to this and made this happen and I’m so grateful to everyone, it’s incredible,” he added.