Castletroy's success was the result of three major factors: a shift in city residential numbers to the outer perimeter, a significant decline in boarding schools and the excellent underage coaching system of neighbours UL Bohemian.
Two Cork schools have shared the senior trophy on 26 occasions since 1971 and that title has gone to Leeside 54 times since the schools cup was founded in 1909. The Munster Senior Schools Cup has come to Limerick on only 20 occasions in 100 years.
Domination is bad for any sport and Castletroy's exciting campaigns last season brought a welcome spark to both junior and senior cup competitions. With dominance comes apathy and too often a drop in standards. It is part of human nature that when pressure is not pushing the bar up in search of higher achievement, the level of competitiveness, particularly within the minnows, wanes.

Wine tasters
Schools rugby in this province is still regarded as the annual 'wine taster' of the new crop.
Senior cup games provide the first pressure test for players with serious rugby ambitions and for a few it has put them on the road to a professional career. More recently Denis Hurley cut his teeth on Munster senior schools cup rugby with St. Munchin's College before joining the senior ranks with Cork Constitution.
Keith Earls, also a former St. Munchin's star, looks set to make a Munster breakthrough this coming season after an impressive Churchill Cup and World Sevens qualifier campaign while Barry Murphy, also of the Corbally college, is another established local in the Munster squad.
It is now going to be much tougher for young local players to break into the Munster set-up. Declan Kidney constantly pointed out during his head coach days with the province that producing players for the international squad sat side by side with Munster success. If we don't produce sufficient quality at schools grade that supply will dry up giving rise to increased numbers of players from outside this region being recruited.
Even now playing just for the jersey is being replaced by playing for the pay-packet and if that trend continues Munster rugby will suffer.
Making the transition from schools to AIL and then into the provinicial squads is becoming more difficult. This season former Castletroy player, Seanie Cronin of Shannon, gets his chance with Connacht, but for others the step from the academies to the big time is proving to be a bridge too far.
There is no doubting the intensity that this region's rugby schools bring into the annual Munster Senior Cup.
Already most of the top contenders have a good idea of who will be in their squads. Almost all the players have been doing gym work since the end of the school year and coaches and selectors have been put in place.
Those who make the cut to be part of the school senior rugby squad are immediately elevated in the eyes of their peers. They become the 'chosen ones'. Some take on the mantel of the 'hard men' and the schools go along with it in the interests of their public image as a successful rugby-playing seat of education. For some schools winning a Munster senior cup runs hand-in-hand with academic success.

Enticing players
Although schools have become masters of disguising their 'modus operandi' regarding the boosting of their squads, enticing good rugby players from B and C schools to the A schools is common practice.
Allegations have been made that players' transfers from one school to another can be 'facilitated', but schools and those directly involved refuse to comment. There has also been concern regarding the physical training that has become part of schools rugby over the past two decades. The temptation to avail of legal substances to improve muscle building and body weight remains. Whether these are totally safe or not remains a matter for discussion, but the amount of body building work being put in now by boys as young as 15 is a far cry from the 1950s and '60s.
Many of us will remember the days when the main criteria for joining the school rugby squad was ownership of a pair of boots and a willingness to get clattered. In the days when St. Munchin's College was situated in Henry Street (the present site of the Henry Street Garda Station) getting a junior cup team on the field was always a challenge. It was little surprise that the college had to wait until they moved to Corbally to win their first senior cup title in 1968.
Secretary of the Munster Schools Committee, Greg Ashe, understands why schools players are now putting more emphasis on pre-season conditioning than ever before: "You can't expect them to hit the ground running as soon as they begin the new curriculum in early September. The schools interprovincials are held in September and October and a lot of these guys are very committed about their sport. There is always some concern that young players might be over-exerting themselves, but they can see what other athletes are doing and this pre-season training is not limited to schools rugby."
Asked if there was concern about a tendency amongst young schools players to 'bulk-up' in the off-season, Greg Ashe said that there would be concern that purchases on the internet of some products which promise short-cuts to muscle development and power building, for instance, may not be suitable alternatives to gym work.
"My view would be that young rugby players are better off to follow a well thought-out training programme which is controlled and supervised by professionals."
The vast majority of young players are very aware of their diet and of the implications of using illegal substances. If they are not they will eventually pay the price.
Garryowen have moved swiftly into the young player market by landing a few of last season's prominent schools stars while Young Munster have lost a number of their under-20 squad, partly due to the departure of their under-20 coach John Broderick who is now senior coach of Old Crescent.
It is also understood that Conor Hartigan is to return to the Light Blues where he will join his brothers Kevin and John Paul in the senior squad. Conor had spells with Buccaneers and Highfield while all three Hartigan brothers learned their rugby trade in Dooradoyle and with St Munchin's College.

Jake Considine
PROMISING Young Munster number eight, Jake Considine, heads off to Biarritz next week for ten days of development training with the French club. The 16-year-old from Kildimo has been a member of the North Munster development squad for the past two seasons and is also a member of the Munster Rugby Academy. A student at Salesian Secondary School in Pallaskenry, Jake played hurling and football with Kildimo GAA club and also played soccer with Kildimo AFC. He was a member of the Limerick City hurling team at under-14 level.