When De La Salle ruled the roost in Leinster schools rugby

Diarmuid Coogan remembers well the first tight connection of the neck and shoulders. Not like it was yesterday, given it was 39 years ago already, still enough to recall the moment he sensed De La Salle had a real chance of winning this.
“It was easier than it should have been, you know that way?” he says, recreating in his own head the first scrummage of the 1983 Leinster Schools Senior Cup final between the Churchtown school and Castleknock College.
“It had been built up before that Castleknock had such an imposing pack, they were going to dominate. Actually we were used to hitting big hard men, being hit harder, including the semi-final against Roscrea.”

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