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Instonians Rugby Club has received a significant boost ahead of the 2017/18 season with two highly experience rugby stars signing for the Belfast club in capacities as player/coach.
Former Ulster number 8 Roger Wilson and front-row John Andress, who have both been playing in the English Premiership as well as Pro 12 across the last decade, will be taking up their roles in the coming weeks to aid Instonians in their bid to get back to All-Irish League rugby.
Roger Wilson, who is now Ulster Rugby’s most capped ever player (221 caps) and one of an elite list of players who have made over 300 professional appearances, has enjoyed two stints at his home Province, either side of a four-year spell at Northampton where he represented the Saints on 117 occasions.
John Andress, who also enjoyed a brief stint playing rugby for Ulster, is no stranger to elite rugby, having amassed 205 caps across a multitude of professional clubs, most notably Exeter, Harlequins, Worcester and Edinburgh. John finished out the season with Connaught before retiring from professional rugby.
Director of Rugby at Instonians, Wilbur Leacock, commented on the singings:
“To have players of this experience and this calibre joining Instonians is a real coup. It is a statement of intent; this is a club with ambition and we have not lived up to our potential for the last three seasons.
“The team is very youthful as we are seeing more and more promising young players arriving at the club and as a result we have developed an expansive game. However, whilst this has seen come close to securing the league, we have lacked experience to close out some key games and missed out as a result.
“Roger and John’s knowledge of the game will be a fantastic asset both on and off the field and they will be figures for many of the boys to look up to. We feel we will be very competitive in all competitions for the coming season.”
Roger Wilson added:
“This is a new stage of my career but a very exciting one. I am interested in developing my skills in the coaching arena and am pleased to be doing that with a club that has the ambition to achieve All-Ireland status.
“Instonians is a club that is full of history and whilst there remains some building and fine-tuning to be done, there is no doubt in my mind that it can reach the target of being a senior club once again.”
As a club, Instonians has been building from the ground up. Ken Keane, who is Chairman of the Rugby Committee said:
“Instonians is a family club, we have always engendered a strong ethos of player development and we have a youth system from which a number of extremely talented 1st XV players have emerged.
“This begins with a strong mini and youth structure that exists within the club, providing a platform for a huge number of kids every Saturday and regularly putting out an U14s, 16s and 18s for competitive matches with our U20s tournament a key fixture in the Ulster rugby calendar.
“The club supporters and players are extremely encouraged with the level of these signings and we are all looking forward to another exciting season of rugby.”
Both Roger and John have close connections to the club – Roger attended RBAI from 1993-2000, and coached at the club during the 2016/17 season. Meanwhile, John’s brothers Nico and Alistair, both played in the 2009 Schools’ Cup final form RBAI and have both played rugby for Instonians.
