Rugby choir to sing ahead of Heineken Cup quarter-final clash

When the instigator of a male voice choir held their first rehearsal at Cavan Rugby Club, the handful of first time singers laughed at him when he declared his ambition for them to perform at Lansdowne Road. Come Saturday, April 7 when Thomas Farrell leads the County Cavan Rugby Club Male Voice Choir out to Lansdowne's successor, the Aviva Stadium, for a pre-match performance, no-one will be laughing - they'll be too excited. The 40-plus strong choir will be charged with entertaining the crowd at the Heineken Cup quarter-finals clash between Leinster and Cardiff Blues. "Oh we're very excited about it - sure it's fantastic," Mick Flynn, one of the group's founding members, tells the Celt. "When you consider it's a bunch of fellas like us who never thought we'd ever have such a chance, are suddenly going to be playing in the Aviva. The very notion of it is fantastic! "There will be a degree of nervousness, but it will be a nervousness that will contribute to a good performance I think." Mick recalls cycling along the Cavan bypass back in 2009 when Thomas pulled up alongside and persuaded him to come to the first rehearsal. The novice singers, they didn't have much expectation for the group. "When we went up to practice there might have been eight or 10 guys there, and we were wondering where the hell are we going [with the choir]? And Tom said, 'It is my ambition to sing in Lansdowne Road'. We all laughed at him of course. His ambition is being realised on Saturday." The choir have now performed at a number of high profile events including, the Lady of the Erne festival, the Flat Lake Festival and at a rugby match in Ravenhill. Their invite for the Aviva match stems from their performance on the pitch at the RDS ahead of the Leinster versus Montpellier match earlier this year. "I have heard a lot of positive reports about the last performance in the RDS," said Mick, who missed. "And in fact if that hadn't gone down well we wouldn't be going to the Aviva. Since those early days the choir 63 singers have attended, with some of their members aged in their 70s. "There is a social side that is valued very much by the lads," says Mick, a bass singer, who sounds a tone deeper than Leonard Cohen. "It is one of the things that is attractive about it, the lads like to get together and have a chat after it." They are unique amongst smaller teams in Ireland in having a choir and Mick says that without Thomas, a former player who came to the club in the 1970s having played in Dublin for Blackrock, the choir wouldn't exist - and definitely wouldn't have come this far. "I think Thomas Farrell deserves huge credit," enthused Mick. "He is an unbelievable man. His driving force behind it has been admirable." Asked if Thomas is as good at singing as he was at rugby, Mick responds with a laugh: "You'll have to ask him - I don't know how good any of us are but we have a fairly good sound we are all together and get it right." Hey also paid tribute to the active committee "a bunch of great guys and plenty in the choir who would go above and beyond", conductor Paula O'Neill-Kennedy and accompanists Mary O'Connor and Anne Noelle Bennett. Having played at a major European game, the next big target for the choir is to perform at an Ireland international match. "He [Thomas] would love if we did."