UCD

Dublin has five university rugby clubs to its name, and UCD is the youngest of them, admitted to the Leinster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union in January 1910. The team took its first trophy in 1914, beating Merrion 24–0 for the Leinster Junior Challenge Cup, a result that earned promotion to senior status. The war held that promotion up, and it was not confirmed until 21 May 1919.

Since 1936 the club has played at the UCD Bowl, redeveloped in 2007 and holding 3,000, of whom 1,500 can sit. Every December it stages the Colours Match against Trinity College Dublin's Dublin University FC, a fixture that goes back to 13 December 1952 at Lansdowne Road, where UCD won 13–6.

The Leinster Senior Cup has come to Belfield eleven times, from 1923–24 to 1919–20, and it was Clontarf who stood across from UCD in two of the finals that shaped that record, 1938 and 2015. In 2001 UCD won Division 2 of the All-Ireland League.

What the club is known for beyond its own trophy cabinet is what leaves it. Brian O'Driscoll and Jonathan Sexton both came up through UCD before becoming, respectively, a British and Irish Lion with 133 caps and Ireland's all-time leading points scorer. Barry Bresnihan left a smaller but stranger mark: in 1968 he became the first official replacement in the history of rugby. Over 70 UCD players have gone on to play for Ireland.