Lane Cove Old Ignatians: Sydney's newest subbies rugby club on song in 2024

L-R back row are: LCOIRFC President Robert Ward; Old Ignatians Club founding member Peter Cahill; Wallabies Stephen Larkham, Stirling Mortlock and Dave Giffin; MC and Vice President John Meagher; and Lane Cove Life member Rob Sinclair OAM. Standing front are Club Vice-President Graeme Priddy and Club Patron Cliff Harvey.

​On 19 July at Dockside, Cockle Bay, Sydney’s newest Subbies rugby club, the Lane Cove Old Ignatians (LCOIRFC), held its first President’s Lunch since the club formed out of the merger of the Lane Cove Rugby Club with the Old Ignatians Rugby Club.

Attendees were young and old, and all were in great song, from the current Colts to their 1950s equivalents. As part of the schedule of the old-fashioned rugby long lunch, attendees heard some stirring words from President Robert Ward about the dedication of the club’s supporters through the period of transition, before MC John Meagher invited Wallaby greats Stephen Larkham and Stirling Mortlock to speak on the golden Wallaby/Brumby era of the late 1990s early 2000s and offer some reflections on the joys of club rugby. 

The LCOIRFC has some impressive green and gold pedigree of its own, with two Wallabies and a Kangaroo having played for Lane Cove (Ken Yanz, Saxon White and Greg Florimo), while Wallaby John Coolican played for Old Iggies. Lane Cove Wallabies Ken Yanz (a hard tackling  truckie) and Saxon White (a fleet footed centre and professor of biomedical sciences) are as good a demonstration of rugby’s capacity to mould all sorts into mates as any in the game. The duo toured together with the 1957/8 Wallabies, a side that famously failed to win a Test match. The subject of just how so a talented side failed to win has long troubled rugby historians, but was put to rest by Yanz when interviewed by Norm Tasker at Lane Cove’s 2017 Christmas Lunch: “they didn’t pass me the ball,” he said.

Silverware

In Lane Cove’s hey day in the 1960s, it boasted a former coach of Australia, Barney Walsh, as coach of its Kentwell Cup side. Lane Cove won the Cup in 1967 and 1968 under skipper Graham Oborn who was also in attendance at the lunch. Lane Cove’s John Singleton even convinced Rugby League Immortal Johnny Raper to coach the club’s 1977 Judd Cup side to a premiership. 

​Representing the heritage of Old Iggies was Pete Cahill, a founding member of the 1969 inaugural Old Ignatians Club side that contested the Grand Final of the Judd Cup, going  down to Whale Beach by the narrowest of margins 3-nil. The Club went on to win all sorts of silverware, including the Kentwell Cup in 2002. 

Although both clubs have long welcomed all comers, according to Lane Cove Waratah John Bay, the winning culture of Lane Cove Rugby had its origins on the concrete “bull ring” play area at the local Lane Cove Public primary school, while the Old Ignatians Club was founded by old boys of the local St Ignatius’ College Riverview, a Jesuit boarding school drawing boys from all over the state and beyond.

Best of rugby tradition

Old Iggies’ foundational connection to Riverview has always ensured a steady stream of country boys playing for the club, adding to the larrikin diversity of its playing fraternity. President Ward hails from Trundle, though players are accepted regardless of postcode or schooling. 

Lane Cove too has always brought together a diverse brotherhood of players, stretching back to the late 1940s, when the riverside suburb was still mostly working class. Among the rich tapestry of its heritage is retired local harp maker Rob Somerville, whose father was an Aboriginal veteran of the First World War who brought the family to Lane Cove from Dubbo and never missed a match at Tantallon. Somerville played for the club in the 1950s and coached into the 1960s, and still remembers its welcoming ethos: “Most of the blokes were fitters and turners, or carpenters or tradesmen,” he told me for the history of Lane Cove Club. “Footballers in general are way ahead of the rest of the community in accepting other people and races - especially Aboriginals,” he said.

These are the stories that make Club Patron Cliff Harvey most proud about his association with Lane Cove, and it is a heritage he is now happy to pass on to Old Iggies. The retired stock and station agent, now 86, played in the Lane Cove U21 that won the State Championship in 1958 and has been inherited as Patron of the newly combined club. Harvey's  impromptu rendition of the Lane Cove Rugby song brought the house down on Friday. Sung to the tune of John Brown’s Body, the seventy year old rugby anthem makes so bold as to claim that Lane Cove Rugby was "in Australia before Captain Cook was born". Whilst archaeological diggings around Tantalon Oval are inconclusive on this point, the Old Iggies boys seemed convinced, and joined the chorus with gusto: “Even if you don’t believe us, it’s a jolly good story all the same!”
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In the best of rugby tradition, the Old Iggies alumni then sang their club’s anthem in honour of their new Patron and the historic fusion of the two clubs. 

Bright future and proud heritage

Lane Cove has had a strong juniors club since the 1950s, but has suffered from a lack of continuity with local boys going to rugby-playing private high schools nearby. The difficult COVID years had left the club with seriously depleted player numbers. Old Iggies on the other hand has always had a strong feeder connection from Riverview but in recent years lacked a home ground in the local area. The marriage of the two clubs has brought Old Iggies back to the municipality at Tantallon Oval and now offers a continuous player pathway of strong local affiliation from juniors, through high school, to colts and seniors. This season, the amalgamated club is fielding three senior teams, with the Firsts playing in the Clark Cup, the Seconds in the Farrant Cup and Colts in the Nicholson Cup. The future is looking bright with Colts top of the table under coach Rob Palmer and Nick Hill, both Old Iggies alumni. 

The Lane Cove Club has been playing at Tantallon since its foundation in 1949, and it is pleasing to Patron Cliff Harvey to see that the future of rugby on the oval is secure with the transfer of the Old Iggies player base to home turf in front of a newly built clubhouse. “From now on, we go forward as one,” he declared after finishing his hymn to Lane Cove Rugby. 
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There’s a nod to all this history in the team’s new jersey, which has retained the distinctive red blue and white strip of Old Iggies, but with the addition of Lane Cove’s distinctive rugby league style V on the chest. For Heritage Round on the 27th of July, the club went a step further and played in classic Lane Cove jerseys to keep the memory of past seasons alive, adding no doubt a little dew to the eye of the club pioneers who were in attendance, including 1958 U21 State Champion skipper Dave Kensett-Smith.

After a successful take-off in 2024, the sky looks to be the limit for the rejuvenated Lane Cove Old Ignatians, though  next year the truly hard work begins: how to amalgamate two great club songs!