Captain's Message
Dear Wanderers Members and Visitors,
I am extremely proud and honoured to be renamed as Club Captain of Wanderers FC First XV for the forthcoming season. Firstly, Id like to extend a warm welcome to Merrion Road to all players, officials, supporters, sponsors and visiting teams for what is sure to be another exciting season of rugby. Secondly, I'd like to thank outgoing president Neil Metchette for all of his support last season and congratulate incoming president Paul Whelan and his executive committee - I look forward to see you carry on the success of previous years.
All our squad members enjoyed the much-needed break over the Summer, but it has been great to get back on the pitch with old and new faces for pre-season. I'm confident that our squad, coaches and management team will do everything possible to do the club proud throughout the season and build towards our ultimate goal of promotion to AIL 2A.
While the work on the pitch continues for us, it has been fantastic to see the first stages of the new club development up and running in recent weeks. The installation of the new interim gym along with the 4G pitch will be a huge asset to every member of the club, from the First XV right through to mini rugby. This is an important step in the club development plans and I want to thank everyone involved in previous and current executive committees, along with all other members and volunteers for their time and effort in making these facilities available for us as players.
To all our supporters, we have plenty of travel ahead of us this season with 4 trips up North along with Sligo, Galway and Cork on the cards. Whilst the players and I understand it's not always possible to travel to these, I really want to encourage every member to attend as many home games as possible. The final game of last season against Malahide was a record for attendance for many years and the support and encouragement from the sidelines had a huge impact on the performance on the pitch. If we had this for every home game, we would be the envy of most clubs in the country – let's make Merrion Road as loud as possible for every home game. A huge shout out to Fergus Moriarty, his team and the social committee for putting days like that on for us as a club and looking forward to many more of them this year and for the years ahead.
To all of our sponsors, in particular our principal sponsors Powers Whiskey (IDL) and MSL Ballsbridge, I thank you for your continued support, it allows Wanderers FC to complete across all levels of rugby and we are extremely grateful for your continued partnership.
Finally, I'd like to wish all players, coaches and anyone connected with our great club the best for the season ahead. I look forward to meeting you all at matches, club events and hopefully celebrations come the end of the year ahead.
Geoff Mullan,
Captain Wanderers FC