In 2011, Ivan Heffernan featured in a Mayo News article. The renowned back-row looked to the future and predicted an exciting decade for Ballina RFC where underage success would lead to a return to the AIL.
How right he was!

THE MAYO NEWS, APRIL 6TH 2011
Ivan Heffernan reflects on Ballina’s proud and historic tradition

Feature
Rob Murphy

HISTORY is repeating itself in Ballina it seems.
After a period of reinvention the club appears to be emerging stronger than ever and parallels can be drawn with the side that emerged in the mid 70s to kick-start a golden period for Ballina RFC that brought 13 trophies between 1974 and 1985.
Playing in the back-row of the 1985 Junior Cup winning side was one Ivan Heffernan.
His father (Ivan senior) had captained the 1951 double-winning Senior Cup and league side but a period out of the limelight soon followed. However, one man was to make a huge difference in ending the drought as the club re-emerged a Junior level.
“I think that whole period of revival for the club comes down to the initial work of Oliver Bourke,” explained Ivan Heffernan last week.
“He came back to the club as a coach in the 70s and immediately began to focus on developing a strong underage structure.
“You’re talking about a man who was highly respected as a coach, having been in charge of the Leinster under 19s, and having had a hugely successful period with the likes of Ollie Campbell, John Robbie, Ray Finn and Johnny Cantwell all emerging from those teams.”
Bourke focused first on developing underage sides that won the top honours in the province and building the foundations of future Junior and Senior Cup triumphs. Much like the 2011 vintage, the majority of the squad had played with the club successfully from a very young age.
“Ollie was ahead of his time, he introduced professional style training,” said Heffernan. “I think he wasn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers in his Leinster days either. He certainly would have fallen foul of the hierarchy in the IRFU and Connacht Branch. Some of his ideas were a little too radical for their liking.”
Bourke moved to New Zealand with his family after that but during the best period in Ballina RFC’s history, he was at the heart of it all driving them forward.
A junior league title in ’74 started the ball rolling, then came the Junior Cup titles of ’76 and ’77, with a league title thrown in before the club made Irish rugby history.
“We won the Senior Cup in ’79, I think to this day we’re the only Junior Club ever to do that. No one would have given us a prayer but we went at it fully confident that we could win it out. We beat a strong Athlone side in the final.”
The five Junior league titles in a row culminated in the club turning senior in 85/86 and, while they competed strongly, they only once notched silverware again in a hugely impressive 1992/93 campaign that saw them take the senior league title and finish runners-up in the Cup before joining the AIL.
The trophies were few and far after that, but Ivan Heffernan is certain that going senior was the right call.
“We were probably just past our peak when we went senior and maybe we didn’t have another batch of players to push on again. But we certainly held our own. I’d have no regrets about going senior at all, we always had ambition as a club and we were in the All-Ireland league for a long period.”

Ambition is the key word. Ballina have it in abundance, always have. When they won those early titles in the 70s the club were working tremendously hard to maintain the underage structures and to develop. By 1978 a brand new clubhouse had been opened. Staying put was never an option, but they lost their way slightly in the past decade.
“The last few seasons in the AIL weren’t great ones for the club. I think we had too strong a contingent from overseas and we allowed ourselves to get a little detached from the town. It was hard for people to come down to games when they only knew a handful of the players, not to mention the fact that it was a huge financial drain on the club”
But that is not to say Ballina wouldn’t want to get back up there again with young players from the area making an impact all around the country, including Ivan’s son, David, in Dublin. There is no reason why they should baulk at the idea.
“That will be a goal down the line again,” agreed Heffernan. “We want to develop, build the new lights and astroturf pitch, and build up our underage structures. And if AIL rugby is on the cards then we’ll go for it and hopefully learn some lessons from the past.”