Galwegians RFC
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| Galwegians | ||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Galwegians Rugby Football Club | |||||||||||||||||
| Founded | 1922 | |||||||||||||||||
| Union | IRFU, Connacht Branch | |||||||||||||||||
| Ground(s) | Crowley Park, Galway | |||||||||||||||||
| Capacity | ~4000 | |||||||||||||||||
| Coach |  Paul Young |
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Galwegians Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club in Galway, Ireland. The club was founded in 1922 and plays in the top division of the Irish domestic club competition the Allied Irish Banks All Ireland League (AIB League).
Founded in 1922, Galwegians has a long and distinguished history at the forefront of Connacht Rugby. Of current Connacht "Senior Clubs" Galwegians have the record of winning the Connacht Senior Cup, with 29 wins to date, they are the current champions (season 2007-08) beating Buccaneers 22-7 in the Final. In more recent times, Galwegians recorded three back-to-back Connacht Cup and League doubles between 2000-2002.
Jimmy Joyce was the club's first international in wartime 1943. The tradition continued into the 1950’s with Dicky Roche, Brendan Guerin, Charlie Lydon, Tony O’Sullivan and Johnny Dooley each gaining caps. The golden age of Galwegians rugby was the five-in-a-row Connacht League and Cup double in 1955-1960, an unprecedented feat in Irish rugby, when Wegians were arguably the best team in the country, regularly beating the other senior clubs in Ireland.
Galwegians current head coach is Paul Young (appointed in 2005), former hooker of Newport Gwent Dragons & Wales.
Galwegians field 16 teams - Senior, Development XV, Thirds XV, Women's XV and underage from U-7s up to U-20s. The Connacht Ladies representative side is constituted predominantly from the Galwegians Ladies side.
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[edit] Crowley Park
06/06/2007 The sale of Galwegians’ Rugby Club for €28 million to Rhattigan Construction is to go ahead after the clubs members gave 100 per cent backing at a meeting last Thursday night.
Members of the Galwegians club unanimously voted in favour of selling its grounds at Crowley Park in Glenina on the Dublin Road, Galway to Rhattigans Construction and to develop a state of the art clubhouse, pitches and other facilities at their new 30 acre site at Brownsgrove on the Moycullen Road in Galway.
The project will now proceed to the planning permission stage and, according to reports, Rhattigans are expected to apply to build 65 residential units at Crowley Park which is 9.25 acres in size. At the club’s new home on the Moycullen Road it is expected that seven flood-lit and astro turf pitches will be built.
[edit] Honours
*Connacht Senior Cup - 29 Wins
*Connacht Senior League - 20 Wins
[edit] Famous Players
Eric Elwood
In more recent times Eric Elwood was capped first as an amateur for Ireland while playing for his native province Connacht Rugby and the Dublin based club Lansdowne Football Club before he returned to Galway and Galwegians the club of his youth.
Whilst playing for his province Connacht Rugby Eric made over over 150 appearances for the province and scored a record 318 points in Celtic League competition.
During his playing career Eric also earned 35 caps for his country Ireland Rugby and scored 296 Test Points comprised of:
| Tries: 0 | Penalties: 68 | Conversions: 43 | Drop Goals: 2
This total places Eric at number four in the All Time Points Scorers list for Ireland. He has also participated in two Rugby World Cups in both 1995 (South Africa) & 1999 (France).
Eric is currently coach to the Ireland Under-20 Rugby team which won a grand slam in the current season (2006-07)Six Nation Championship, their results were as follows:
Wales U20s (Away) - 15-17; France U21s (Home) - 19-16; England U20s (Home) - 13-06; Scotland U20s (Away) - 08-31; Italy U21s (Away) - 25-36.
[edit] IRFU Presidents
Galwegians surely hold the distinction of having provided more IRFU Presidents than any other club. The incumbents were:
- 1945-46 - Henry Anderson L.D.S.I.,
- 1958-59 - Johnny Glynn
- 1968-69 - Chris P Crowley
- 1981-82 - John Moore - B.Sc.
- 1996-97 - Bobby Deacy - F.C.A.
- 2002-03 - Don Crowley - B.E.,Eur. Ing., C.Eng., M.I.E.I.
[edit] IRISH Internationals
(Player capped while playing with Galwegians RFC)
MEN
- 1944 - J.P. Joyce (Jimy)
- 1955 - R.E. Roche (Dick)
- 1956 - B.N.Guerin (Brendan)
- 1956 - C.T. Lydon (Charlie)
- 1957 - P.J. O’Sullivan (Tony)
- 1959 - J.F.Dooley (Johnny)
- 1997 - E. Elwood (Eric)
- 1999 - M. Mostyn (Matt)
WOMEN
- 1997 - Stephanie Dowling Folan
- 1997 - Sue Ramsbottom
- 2003 - Nuala Ni Chadhain
[edit] Barbarians Representatives
Several Galwegians players have represented the famous Barbarian F.C., the most recent to play while in Galwegans colours were Jimmy Duffy and Wilie Ruane who played against the Combined Service (British) at Burnaby Road, Portsmouth on 10/11/1998 in a game won 51-20 by the Baa-Baa's.
Eric Elwood played for the Barbarians against New Zealand at Cardiff Arms Park on 04/12/1993, a game that the Barbarians lost by 12-25. Elwood scoring all the Barbarians points (converting four penalties).
[edit] External links
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