FOR GARY LYNCH, coming out was a relatively straightforward experience, but it was certainly made easier by the knowledge that a club like Emerald Warriors were out there. An outlet that allowed him to seamlessly continue playing a sport he loved.
The Dubliner was in his mid-teens and experienced much the same trepidation as anyone would, but was surrounded with a supporting group who were more confused that they hadn’t been told that he was gay sooner, than the information itself.
Lynch is 22, fresh from completing an economics and sociology degree in Trinity College. And through his involvement with the Emerald Warriors club, he has been able to meet team-mates who, for one reason or another, didn’t feel able to announce that they were gay until much later in life.
The Warriors style themselves as an inclusive team which openly invites players, whatever their sexual orientation, to engage in competitive rugby at a J10 club level in Dublin.
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(Lynch, left, collecting a joint player of the year award with Noel Noblett)
“To put it crudely,” Lynch tells The42 between logistical planning for his trans-Atlantic trip this week, “how else do you meet other gay people and make friends with similar interests? You either go to a sports club, or go out to a bar and meet people.”
With that mission of bringing like-minded people together through a jersey, Emerald Warriors is in effect helping men know themselves a little better.
Lynch was on RTE Radio 1 last week with a team-mate who told how he felt the need to wait until he was 26 before openly embracing his homosexuality. Ten years is a considerable time to wait just to be yourself.
“In loads of sports, people in the LGBT community are under-represented. For me coming out in school, knowing there’s a group of guys who are gay and play rugby, that’s such a big thing. It seems silly, but I didn’t know people could do that. (It’s good to have) someone to look up to.
I think that social aspect is really important. I don’t think it should be a community of people going to the same clubs. The same way as there are Irish-speaking clubs, there are clubs with a geographic area to bring that community together, inclusive sports clubs can improve our community and allow everyone to meet more people.”
Sometimes indeed, a few more people than would be ideal. The Warriors have had to cope with a high rate of player turnover in the cycle between Bingham Cups – effectively a World Cup for inclusive rugby clubs named after Mark Bingham who was part of the passenger uprising against hijackers on the United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on 11 September 2001.
After the 2014 Bingham Cup in Sydney, Emerald Warriors lost players the same way most local clubs lose players: age, emigration, injury and then a touch of diminished interest.
This week, the club boasts 40 players, 25 of whom have travelled to Nashville for this year’s Bingham. Pool fixtures get under way today and hopes are high even if they do have to face the reigning champions. The reason, Lynch says, is the effort of coach Pat Tipper, who has assembled a squad piece by piece at Suttonians rugby club.
Lynch played back row through his school years at St Mary’s, and so his in-built rugby knowledge is now an invaluable part of the Warriors’ back-line. Others who arrived in dribs and drabs in Nashville don’t have that sort of pedigree, but their hunger to compete is just as strong.
“Pat became our coach last summer. To his credit, he took what was a group of 10-15 lads who had never held a rugby ball before and built them from the ground up.
“It was a difficult season to start with that many fresh guys, but we’re heading off to the tournament now with pretty good hopes of being able to compete pretty well in the mid-tier teams.
“I don’t know what magic he brought, but I don’t know many other coaches who could take a group of guys that fresh and have them playing J10 level and then having them go off to an international tournament with good hope in that sort of time-frame.”
To achieve that, the club have sought training and development in, well, the usual ways: tag tournaments, coaching clinics and, most importantly, open invites to people who have any interest in trying to play rugby to come on down. Emerald Warriors are not a gay rugby club; they make good on the inclusive moniker they ascribe themselves and have a growing cohort of straight players in their ranks.
The club diminished in size greatly following the last Bingham Cup, but when they return from Nashville the hope is that they may continue to go from strength to strength by being a place people — no matter what their age, skill-set or experience — can go to pick up a rugby ball and test themselves at the sport.
“The club’s inclusive and that’s something we’re very much committed to,” says Lynch.
“You can come in at any level, train, and usually there’ll be someone roughly at the same level as you. At the same time, we’ve got some experienced players and they’re welcome too. That attracts a lot of people. It can be intimidating to show up to training at a club and just say: ‘I don’t know anything but I’d love to play’.
We make the point: just come down, it’s not so scary. We do all the normal rugby things: we have clinics, trips away, there’s a good amount of drinking, shenanigans. The same reason anyone has a good time in a rugby club.
“Guys join up and say it’s just a bit of craic. It’s a big group of mates and we all look out for each other.”
10, 15 lads 'who had never held a rugby ball before' built up to compete on international stage this weekend
FOR GARY LYNCH, coming out was a relatively straightforward experience, but it was certainly made easier by the knowledge that a club like Emerald Warriors were out there. An outlet that allowed him to seamlessly continue playing a sport he loved.
The Dubliner was in his mid-teens and experienced much the same trepidation as anyone would, but was surrounded with a supporting group who were more confused that they hadn’t been told that he was gay sooner, than the information itself.
Lynch is 22, fresh from completing an economics and sociology degree in Trinity College. And through his involvement with the Emerald Warriors club, he has been able to meet team-mates who, for one reason or another, didn’t feel able to announce that they were gay until much later in life.
The Warriors style themselves as an inclusive team which openly invites players, whatever their sexual orientation, to engage in competitive rugby at a J10 club level in Dublin.
(Lynch, left, collecting a joint player of the year award with Noel Noblett)
“To put it crudely,” Lynch tells The42 between logistical planning for his trans-Atlantic trip this week, “how else do you meet other gay people and make friends with similar interests? You either go to a sports club, or go out to a bar and meet people.”
With that mission of bringing like-minded people together through a jersey, Emerald Warriors is in effect helping men know themselves a little better.
Lynch was on RTE Radio 1 last week with a team-mate who told how he felt the need to wait until he was 26 before openly embracing his homosexuality. Ten years is a considerable time to wait just to be yourself.
“In loads of sports, people in the LGBT community are under-represented. For me coming out in school, knowing there’s a group of guys who are gay and play rugby, that’s such a big thing. It seems silly, but I didn’t know people could do that. (It’s good to have) someone to look up to.
Sometimes indeed, a few more people than would be ideal. The Warriors have had to cope with a high rate of player turnover in the cycle between Bingham Cups – effectively a World Cup for inclusive rugby clubs named after Mark Bingham who was part of the passenger uprising against hijackers on the United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on 11 September 2001.
After the 2014 Bingham Cup in Sydney, Emerald Warriors lost players the same way most local clubs lose players: age, emigration, injury and then a touch of diminished interest.
This week, the club boasts 40 players, 25 of whom have travelled to Nashville for this year’s Bingham. Pool fixtures get under way today and hopes are high even if they do have to face the reigning champions. The reason, Lynch says, is the effort of coach Pat Tipper, who has assembled a squad piece by piece at Suttonians rugby club.
Lynch played back row through his school years at St Mary’s, and so his in-built rugby knowledge is now an invaluable part of the Warriors’ back-line. Others who arrived in dribs and drabs in Nashville don’t have that sort of pedigree, but their hunger to compete is just as strong.
“Pat became our coach last summer. To his credit, he took what was a group of 10-15 lads who had never held a rugby ball before and built them from the ground up.
“It was a difficult season to start with that many fresh guys, but we’re heading off to the tournament now with pretty good hopes of being able to compete pretty well in the mid-tier teams.
“I don’t know what magic he brought, but I don’t know many other coaches who could take a group of guys that fresh and have them playing J10 level and then having them go off to an international tournament with good hope in that sort of time-frame.”
To achieve that, the club have sought training and development in, well, the usual ways: tag tournaments, coaching clinics and, most importantly, open invites to people who have any interest in trying to play rugby to come on down. Emerald Warriors are not a gay rugby club; they make good on the inclusive moniker they ascribe themselves and have a growing cohort of straight players in their ranks.
The club diminished in size greatly following the last Bingham Cup, but when they return from Nashville the hope is that they may continue to go from strength to strength by being a place people — no matter what their age, skill-set or experience — can go to pick up a rugby ball and test themselves at the sport.
“The club’s inclusive and that’s something we’re very much committed to,” says Lynch.
“You can come in at any level, train, and usually there’ll be someone roughly at the same level as you. At the same time, we’ve got some experienced players and they’re welcome too. That attracts a lot of people. It can be intimidating to show up to training at a club and just say: ‘I don’t know anything but I’d love to play’.
“Guys join up and say it’s just a bit of craic. It’s a big group of mates and we all look out for each other.”
To join or just find out more about Emerald Warriors, go to EWRFC.ie or find them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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