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former Scottish Rugby Captain , Budge Pountney , to a school / club , development / liason role our hope is that these difficulties will soon be a thing of the past .
RC : Would you consider yours to be a community club ?
IW : Not only does my club offer rugby to males and females in the community but it has a long history of encouraging mini , youth and adult players from all sides of the religious and political divide in Northern Ireland e . g . many players from local Gaelic football and hurling clubs have been mainstays of many of our teams over the years . We do also like to involve families of mini and youth players to become volunteers within the club and encourage local residents to become social / non playing members .
RC : What do you believe could be some of the biggest challenges the club may face in the next five years ?
IW : The biggest challenge for my club , like many other clubs of a similar status to ourselves , is to be able to sustain the amateur game in ever changing social situations and the ‘ pull ’
48 Issue 75 of the professional game . Young people get jobs on weekends to fund their further education and social lives and increasingly tend not to put amateur sport first . Rugby in Ireland is probably 4th in terms of popularity , coming behind soccer and the two Gaelic games .
The other challenge is for the amateur game to compete with the popularity of the professional game , as 17,000 people who attend an Ulster Rugby home game at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast on a Friday night are testament to , then the secret is to market it in a similarly attractive way . This is not easy to achieve by the average amateur game volunteer .
RC : What are the clubs ambitions for the next 5 years ?
IW : While some would argue that my clubs main ambition is to regain its Senior Rugby status as quickly as possible I would be content for us to consolidate the position in the leagues that all of our sides are currently playing in , start to experience and get back to the ‘ winning way ’ and , as a bonus , start winning some trophies .
Winning is a habit that is sometimes hard to regain once lost and there are certainly many players , administrators and volunteers in the club who deserve to experience it again after having stuck with us through the lean times . As I said earlier , the completion of a new pavilion / clubhouse and on field playing facilities is something to look forward to and will , hopefully , provide the catalyst for success going forward .
Honours Ulster Senior Cup : 1984-85 , 1986-87 Ulster Senior League : 1983-84 Ulster Towns Cup : 1961-62 , 2002-03 Ulster Junior Cup : 1976-77