Tony Smeeth has been a long time friend and companion with us all here at Irish Rugby Tours. Since our inception in 1998 Tony has coached, given training sessions and clinics to nearly every one of the Tours coming from into Ireland. We are delighted that he is still heavily involved in the long term strategy and plans for Irish Rugby Tours.
In an article written by Ed Hagerty for www.eRugbyNews.com Ed sums up Tony perfectly.
Stay involved in the game as long as I have (too many years to count) and you’re likely to know a lot of people whose lives are so dominated by rugby (whether through playing, coaching, refereeing or all of the above) that the sport shapes the work they do, how their lives are spent, and even where they live.
Tony Smeeth is a person who falls into that category. A 48-year-old Englishman, Smeeth is the Director of Rugby at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, a top-notch university where the cost of education is reasonable and the standard of rugby very high. In fact, Trinity’s Under-20s have been to the final of the All-Ireland Championship four of the last six years.
Smeeth’s route to Ireland began in 1984 in Seattle, WA, where he became a major contributor to the growth of the US game. Tony realized early on that for US rugby to progress, players had to be introduced to the sport much earlier than in their college years, when most Americans learn the game. To accomplish this, he and Mark Bullock introduced high school rugby to the Seattle area starting with six teams (they each coached two of the teams).
But Tony always wanted young US players to experience a higher level of play, so in 1992 he put together the first US U19 team and took them on a tour of New Zealand. Tony would eventually orchestrate seven U19 tours; four to New Zealand and three to Australia.
Looking for another challenge, Tony moved to Dublin in 1995 to take up a coaching post at Blackrock College, and four years later he accepted an offer to coach the Trinity College rugby team. But his ties to US rugby always remained strong and he has consistently attracted top American players to Trinity, where they can hone their games.
“I’m obviously sympathetic to American players,” Smeeth says. “Every other top Irish club brings in Super 12 players, pays them and provides accommodations. But over the last four or five years, Trinity has recruited North Americans such as Jacob Waasdorp, Volney Rouse and Andy King from the US and Forest Gainer from Canada. The Americans come in just wanting experience; so we provide accommodations, a bit of pocket money and coaching jobs that take up 10 to 12 hours a week.”
Tony hasn’t forgotten the benefits a team gets from touring. He brought the Trinity College RFC to the US the past two Septembers and both years the team won the New York Athletic Club’s Remembrance Day Cup, held annually to commemorate club members lost on 9-11-2001 at the World Trade Center.
This year’s Trinity senior team, which plays in the All Ireland League, featured two American players, locks Pat Danahy and Scott Lavalla.
Danahy grew up in Sarasota, Florida, became an accomplished high school football player and had scholarship offers from 35 Division I colleges. He attended Stanford and as a junior in 2006 was the team’s starting tight end. But a fractured vertebra in his back forced him into a backup role as a senior and rugby suddenly seemed like an intriguing alternative.
“My initiation to rugby was sort of a fluke,” Danahy says. “I had friends on the Stanford rugby team who knew I wasn’t enjoying football as much as I used to. So during my senior year when the football season ended, they encouraged me to give rugby a try.”
Danahy didn’t consider rugby seriously until he found out that the Stanford RFC was touring Ireland that December (2006). “I’d always wanted to go to Ireland, so I jumped on the bandwagon and my rugby career began,” he remembers.
It was during a match against Trinity’s U20 team when Tony Smeeth noticed the 6-foot-4, 255-pound Danahy. “Pat was new to the game so he had no idea what he was doing,” recalls Smeeth. “But he was all over the field and showed tremendous potential.”
Following the tour, Danahy went on to play two full seasons of rugby at Stanford. (USA Rugby allows five years of college eligibility, so he was able to continue playing for Stanford while pursuing his master’s degree.) Since top level Irish clubs are allowed one foreign-born, non-student player on their roster, Danahy returned to Dublin this past August for Trinity’s pre-season training and now plays lock on the first team. As a potential US National Team player, Eagle coaches have requested that Danahy gain some experience at tight-head prop on Trinity’s second side.
Danahy found that the biggest difference between playing for Stanford and Trinity is the speed at which the game is played. “The game Trinity plays demands that your recognition and reactions need to be much quicker than what I was used to at Stanford,” Danahy admits. “It’s like going from college football to pro football.”
Scott Lavalla initially arrived in Dublin in the fall of 2007 after graduating from North Thurston High School in Lacey, Washington. At 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, the 20-year-old was a prize recruit for Trinity, having played for both the US U19 and U20 National Teams. Lavalla found it more affordable to attend Trinity than an out of state school in the US, and as a student he doesn’t count as a foreign player on the roster. A US National Team hopeful, Lavalla feels that the playing experience he’s getting at Trinity is invaluable to his development.
“Instead of playing with and against US players with two or three years of experience, at Trinity I’m among athletes who have been playing rugby all their lives,” Lavalla says. “That experience makes them more instinctive and skillful players.”
The bottom line: If US rugby players want to play top level rugby, get a degree from an excellent school and see a bit of the world, Trinity is a very attractive and reasonable
