Leinster Schools Junior Cup

The Leinster Schools Junior Challenge Cup is an under-age rugby union competition for schools affiliated to the Leinster Branch of the IRFU.

Competition is confined to students under the age of 16. The cup is held every January - March with the final in late March. It is usually seen as a good forecast as who will win the Leinster Schools Senior Cup in the following years.

The first recorded Junior Cup was held in 1909 where St. Andrew's College edged out Belvedere to take the "inaugural" cup. There is speculation that the competition was in existence before this but there are no surviving records to prove this.

Like the Senior Cup the competition is now dominated by the "big 6" rugby schools (Blackrock, Belvedere, Terenure, St Marys, Clongowes Wood and St Michaels). While Castleknock College is in fourth place with 8 wins, its last win was 1966. Presentation College Bray has recorded 5 wins, however their last win was in 1990. Only 12 different schools have lifted the Junior Cup, compared to the Senior Cup where 18 different schools have won the title. However, in the last 20 years, Gonzaga, Newbridge, Pres Bray, Castleknock and Wesley have contested the final.

St Michael's has the distinction of being runners up in 5 finals in a row (2007-2011), they were eventual winners in their 6th final in a row in 2012.

Blackrock College have the most victories (50), followed by Belvedere College (17) with Terenure College the next best (10). Despite the domination of the rugby schools the Cup is much less prone to "runs" of victories by a single school, the longest being Belvedere's 4 (1916-1919) and Blackrock's 4s (1979-1982) (2013-2016)

To date only five schools have achieved the almost mythical Senior and Junior Cup double. These are Blackrock, who have achieved this feat 26 times (1910, 1912, 1927, 1933, 1935–36, 1942–43, 1945, 1948, 1953–54, 1956–57, 1962, 1964, 1981–82, 1986–87, 1995, 2004, 2006, 2013–14), St Michaels (2012), Belvedere (2005), Terenure (1958) and Castleknock (1920). Since the Junior Cup records began, only the decade of the 1970s did not produce a double.

Even more rare is to lose both the Senior and Junior Cup Finals in the same year. This depressing feat has been achieved by seven schools on 12 occasions. Terenure College leads with 4 (1957, 1964, 1969 & 1987), followed by Belvedere College with 3 (1930, 1944 & 1962), next Blackrock College (2017), St. Michael's College (2010), St Mary's College (1943), Newbridge College (1939) and Cistercian College Roscrea (1910) with 1 each. Remarkably Blackrock College had never been beaten in both finals in the same year until 2017.

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