THEY WERE THE trailblazers.
The Cistercian College class of 2015 that reached the Leinster senior cup rugby summit, interrupting the dominance of the Dublin powerhouses.
Located in Offaly, hard on the border with north Tipperary, they made their mark and claimed the crown at the RDS on St Patrick’s Day, the first and only win to date in the school’s history.
They graduated and went their separate ways. Like all school teams, some stayed in sport and some didn’t.
Some got a chance to jump to a higher level. Amongst that group, a splintering occurred as they pursued different interests.
That brings us to this weekend: alumni scattered around various sporting arenas, eager to make their mark.
Robert Wharton was centre on that Cistercian team. He’ll be number six for the groundbreaking New York footballers today, featuring in a Connacht semi-final against Sligo in Markievicz Park.
Fineen Wycherley was second row. This afternoon he’s in the Munster engine room in Durban, South Africa. A 95th cap for the province awaits in the last round of the regulation URC campaign against the Sharks.
Alan Tynan pulled the strings from out-half eight years ago. Now he’s bidding to make his senior hurling championship debut for Tipperary tomorrow in Ennis, where an opening Munster assault against Clare beckons.
Wharton is from Reenard in South Kerry, Wycherley from Bantry in West Cork, and Tynan the local from Roscrea in North Tipperary.
Pieter Swanepoel was their coach for that 2015 triumph. A native of Pretoria, the South African was working for Leinster Rugby and living in Birr. Coaching at summer camps, one of his colleagues Brett Igoe floated the idea of Swanepoel filling the coaching position in Cistercian.
“It suited, I was only 15 minutes down the road,” he recalls. “It was a very special group. There was around 200 boys in the school, so a lot of rugby coaching attention can be given with that number. Everybody was boarding, they were a rugby-mad group.”
Brendan McKeogh is from Ballina, the last community in Tipperary before you cross the Shannon on the bridge that brings you to Killaloe in Clare. He’s been the Director of Sport in Cistercian College for the guts of 16 years.
“Traditionally rugby and hurling have been the two strong sports,” McKeogh explains. “We’ve had All-Ireland hurling winners before, like Paddy O’Brien and Hugh Maloney from Tipperary. But we’ve other sports as well, soccer, basketball, a strong athletics programme. We’re probably a more multi-sports school now.”
There were always signs of that sporting versatility. Wharton had been part of Jack O’Connor’s band of Kerry All-Ireland minor winners in 2014. After Cistercian’s landmark run in 2015, he won a county senior medal with divisional outfit South Kerry later that same year and then went on to All-Ireland junior glory in Kerry colours in 2016.
Tynan’s roll call of sporting excellence in 2015 alone was staggering. A few months on from pulling the strings as Cistercian out-half, he started and got on the scoresheet for Tipperary in both the All-Ireland minor football and hurling finals that September, though ended up on the losing side on both occasions.
They were high achievers and juggling codes was never an issue for those supervising them.
“I feel a big thing was the competitiveness amongst those boys,” says Swanepoel. “Even if they went for a game of tennis, it wouldn’t be far from a row.
“Coming from South Africa, I’m a firm believer the more sports you play, the more you develop your skills. The one problem they have here in Ireland is the seasons are too long. Rugby, Gaelic, soccer, it could be nine, ten months a year, from pre-season starts until the final matches are going on.
“But the more you play, the more it’ll accompany the other games you play.”
Wharton boarded in Roscrea with no rugby background to speak of. It didn’t prevent him from flourishing.
“That wouldn’t be uncommon and Robert was just a gifted athlete,” says McKeogh.
“Real turn of pace, brilliant evasion and take-off speed. Tough, hardy young fella as well.
“It was quite difficult for him to play for Kerry back then because he was in boarding school, the competition for panel places down in Kerry and the distance from Roscrea to there.
“He’d play second centre for us. Tim Foley, who was captain, was 12, and his dad Mark Foley won an All-Ireland hurling medal with Cork. They were a great backline, very exciting group.”
“We played him centre, give that skip one into Rob — incredible speed once he had space,” recalls Swanepoel.
“He had that Gaelic football background. Catching the ball was never a problem. He quickly adapted playing rugby. Just had a ball in his hands all the time, like the rest of them. The natural skills just develop then.”
Within two years of school glory, Wycherley made his Munster debut in a league trip away to Cardiff. He dipped his toes into European waters at home to Castres before Christmas 2018, and capped his progress with his Ireland debut against the USA in the summer of 2021.
“Listen, he was a grafter,” recalls Swanepoel.
“He came in TY (Transition Year). A big boy, but very raw, but he just put the head down and worked incredibly hard every single day. By the time he got to Leaving Cert, he had really worked on strength and conditioning.
“Type of guy in a game in wet weather, he’d to go out and take the bull by the horns. He’s been playing a lot for Munster, which is super to see and his younger brother Josh joining him as well.”
Tynan was a standout. His range of playing gifts set him apart, a mix of qualities that looked set to propel him to sporting stardom.
“Alan was special,” states Swanepoel. “I still haven’t seen a young individual who can step off both feet at full pace like him. The most natural sportsman I’ve ever seen. Like I’m sure if he wanted, he could have played cricket for Ireland. Whatever sport equipment he touched, he’ll be good at it.”
McKeogh agrees with that expression of natural talent.
“In hurling, I’d say Alan and Jack Canning are the two lads in my years in the school, that were standing out above the norm, in terms of gift of hands and incredible movement.
“Alan scored a try against Blackrock in our cup quarter-final and it was an incredible individual score. He’s the same movement style now, he’s exceptional. So intelligent on the ball.
“His dad Alan (senior) would have coached the senior cup team at the school and he was a selector on the Roscrea team that won the Tipperary premier intermediate hurling championship last year. Alan’s grandad, Joe, would have been an excellent hurler in his own right. So he has a mix of both sports there.”
That Munster came calling was little surprise. Tynan spent four years with the province’s academy and lined out for Ireland in the U20 World Cup in 2017 in Georgia. He knocked on the door but it stubbornly refused to open and by the end of 2020, his rugby involvement was halted.
“If you go to an 18-, 19-year-old boy and tell him here’s the opportunity to play a (professional) sport, it is really hard to turn that down,” says Swanepoel.
“I don’t know exactly what happened with Munster. I know he was a standout player for Young Munster, but for Munster itself, I think he was maybe just unlucky not to get more games and build up a higher profile to go to another club.
“Listen, these boys grew up with hurling. It’s great to see him get back to the sport he loved. I’d be delighted for him, know his father well, worked with him in Roscrea. Nice people. It’s good to see Alan getting a break.”
Initially there was a tug-of-war between the Tipperary senior managements for Tynan’s services in early 2021. He opted for hurling but injuries placed roadblocks in his way. Liam Cahill, his old minor boss in 2015, took the senior reins in Tipperary last autumn and it has coincided with him flourishing as a regular starter in this spring’s hurling league.
The capacity to perform after years away from the game impresses McKeogh.
“People say Alan has made the transition from rugby to hurling, he’s portrayed as then having a big physical presence. Now Alan is tall, but he’s not a huge, big man. Alan’s standout quality is his hand-eye co-ordination. His ability to evade tackles. His sporting brain I think is probably ahead of most lads.
“It’s very impressive to go back in and pick hurling up so quickly.”
McKeogh meets Tynan occasionally in the coffee shop he is running in Roscrea. Hailing from the border with Clare entices him to attend tomorrow’s game in Cusack Park to see if they can secure local bragging rights.
Wharton was on the fringes of the Kerry senior squad in 2019, coming on against Clare. His current New York GAA tale is a novelty.
“It’s just great to see Robert back at a level he should be playing at. I hadn’t realised that Robert was playing for New York; I got a text off one of the past pupils that night to switch on the TV. It’s always nice to follow thse lads.”
Wycherley and Tynan are both 25, Wharton is 26. They have moved on from their secondary school days, making their way in the adult world on and off the pitch.
Tracking their progress is a source of pride for those that coached them.
“As school coaches, our job is to try to steer them to the best possible path,” says Swanepoel, who now coaches rugby at Kilkenny College.
“It’s always an honour to say I picked them for a team. You would never take praise as a school coach; these guys work incredibly hard to get themselves to where they are.
“There was a reunion in Birr a couple years ago. It was great to see not just them three, but a few lads involved in other teams in AIL or junior rugby. There’s always a connection with that team.
“There’s one thing you can’t change and that’s history. Whoever was involved in that 2015 win, you can always say you were part of that success.”