Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.

They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of fifteen Blackrockmen who do not want to be broken.

Everyone, playing, coaching, supporting or otherwise, has their own particular part to play.

No part is too great or too small; no one is too old or too young to do something.

On a grey Sunday in February 1981 I went to war for Blackrock College. The battleground was inside Donnybrook Stadium. I was not to know it at the time, but my life would change as a result of the outcome of a game of rugby. It was a remarkable contest. They don't do 3-0 anymore but it was as authentic an encounter as you could ever witness, testimony that in a battle of wills nothing is ceded cheaply, if at all. The fates decreed that a score to nil would decide it.

Our opponents, Terenure College, were the 1979 and 1980 champions, more than hated opponents and a school that garnered great satisfaction and encouragement from beating us in those two finals. Psychologically, they had our number.

The team that represented Blackrock College that day was charged with the responsibility of the occasion - uphold the tradition of the school and put the imperialists back in their box. We were driven by one of the great motivating forces in human nature - there was no alternative, we simply had to win that game.

I remember saying a prayer on the night before the game, promising the Lord, not that I believed in his existence, that I would be good for the rest of my life if we won. I lied! There had, in any case, been 29 other such requests. There would be no divine intervention – i) because there is no God, and ii) even if he existed, not even the Almighty would take sides on this one. Human endeavour only.

I also remember the dressing room at the Bective end, and looking around at our team minutes before heading out on the pitch. Years later I would find out that my team-mates would continually use me as a barometer, so that if I looked like I was up for it, well then so would they be. On the other hand . . .

Everyone would happily have given their life for a taste of victory on that day. Being up for it is one thing, being good enough is an entirely different matter. They say a team is only as strong as its weakest link and in this Blackrock team of real quality you would have to go looking.

Ciaran Savage and Peter Kelleher stood out. In terms of size and power they simply did not measure up. In terms of skill levels and footballing ability they were 14th and 15th out of 15. Neither of them had pace, nor were they deep thinkers of the game. In terms of verbal output they practically never said a word on or off the pitch. In terms of being key influencers or boys who could come up with a decisive move or play that changed a game - it never happened. They were, however, a smidgen more than dependable. There was unflinching reinforcement in their bricks and mortar, and in a nation of chiefs and indians, they only wore one feather. Somebody had to do the dirty work.

Peadar (Peter Kelleher) at seven was a fetcher and a tackler. He was a triumph of the human spirit. Physically he was cadaverous but mentally his resolve was unmatchable. Many times we would sit around in dressing rooms feeling good about what we did, oblivious to the fact that this boy had taken a fearful battering for the team and he just sat there listening to us as his body ached.

Sav (Ciaran Savage) at tighthead was also an enigma. Teams expecting Blackrock to roll out Tadhg Furlong-size props would do a double take as this undernourished cruiserweight came out onto the park.

I was intimate with some of the examinations Sav got throughout the season. Many a loosehead would size him up and do him for the first 15 or 20 minutes. Size and power will trump most people in that position but this guy was an awkward bastard and whatever else he could or could not do he had an indomitable will.

Sometimes Sav was like a naive child hurling rocks at the Brits for the first few scrums, but you could see him thinking it out and well before half-time he would have sorted out his sniper's aim through dogged application and sheer cussedness. Long before the final whistle his exasperated opponents had thrown in the towel.

Fidel Castro had a great line: “Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.”

That dressing room before the Terenure quarter-final was what you might have imagined if you ever had a mental image of Soviet soldiers trapped in icy rubble preparing for the final Nazi assault on Stalingrad.

How would the two boys measure up in a battle of brutal intensity where, physically, they would be exposed? All they had until that moment was an untested reserve of courage.

Would it carry them through? Courage, they say, is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.

We weren't disappointed with the scale of physicality. I had not played in a match of such carnivorous intensity before, nor have I since. Quite simply, it was the toughest match I have ever played in. No passengers. No reputations. No respite. No compromise. No excuses. I have been told that from the sideline it was an utterly absorbing and compelling contest. I am told that the ground was so full that there were people up trees and on roofs looking for vantage. I am told that the old ground crackled with the purity of the contest. It was a great occasion and an essay in assessing character, in how you react under the most intense pressure.

All the way through the match my second row partner, Brian O'Sullivan, kept me honest. He was my conscience. Throughout the season I'd had his assiduous prompting - "get there", "push harder", "keep working" - but he didn't need to say it on this occasion. I couldn't have pushed myself harder.

After 35 minutes of purposeful effort and near total domination, Blackrock only had three points to show for it. The second half would be a dramatic reversal in terms of who dictated the pace of the game.

Terenure turned up the gas in the second half and instinct and breathless defiance kept them out. All the way through this Sav and Peadar played with the sort of resilience that showed them to be the best players on the pitch. They defied the physical mis-match, confronted reason and shut out any thoughts of self-preservation.

Stalin once said: “It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.”

When the push came in the last quarter and it looked like our challenge was flagging, our two weakest links reported for duty on the line as the tackles and really hard work that needed to be done under more and more pressure got done.

We can borrow from Dolores Ibarruri, who exclaimed: “No pasaran!” They shall not pass.

And we can borrow from and paraphrase an unknown IRA volunteer and his truly brilliant “The Belfast Brigade”:

Terenure sent the Specials out
To shoot the people down
They thought the Rock boys were dead
In dear old Donnybrook's ground
But they got a rude awakening
With cannon and grenade
When they met the first Batallion
Of the Blackrock Boys Brigade.

And we can read the words of Terence McSwiney:

“It is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer.”

The final 10 minutes came down to a goal line stand principally at the Bective end, down by the tennis courts. Terenure had worked their way to within a metre of our line. It would be our throw-in. Back then when the ball went in a metre from the line then that was where the lineout was.

The forward huddle was a seminal moment. Quite apart from protecting the sanctity of our try line - if Terenure scored here the game was over, none of us wanted to endure the unendurable.

Our captain, Jim Bertrand, had a flutter of indecision. "Who wants this throw"? My conscience and second row partner for the first time in the match went quiet. There was only one person that the ball was going to. It was what I was there for.

As the huddle broke I caught two pairs of unblinking eyes looking at me through muddied complexions. Two fellas who had given the supreme physical effort, two fellas who had bled themselves dry, two fellas who were running on empty, who had no control over what would happen next. In a moment of silence such as that, nothing needed to be said.

Even though I had played in the previous year's cup campaign I was still only 16 years of age. When you look back at the pressure that you are under at a very young age it was incredible. The team were pushed down away from our support which was up at the Wesley end. There was a cabal of Terenure past pupils baying for blood all around the 22 at the Bective end. Terenure moved their two big men up to double team me and their scrum-half, Ronan McNamara, screamed, "you know where it is going; you know where it is going."

The ghost of Eoin O'Broin watched from afar to see whether this crop had the right stuff! He's not dead and he would have only been about four years old at the time, but I couldn't find any other Irish Republican revolutionaries to reference, so he'll do.

Right there and then you just do your job. Mistime your jump or succumb to pressure from their jumpers and you easily slap the ball over the line and their hooker falls on the ball for the match-winning try. But what really focused the mind was the incorruptible honesty of effort from Sav and Peadar - you fail and you could never really look them in the eye again. I had no alternative. I simply had to catch the ball.

The catch was sure and three more in the last five minutes deep in our 22. We persisted and we persevered and when the final whistle blew there was incalculable ecstasy of the win in the face of stone-edged adversity.

Experiences like that do not build character, they reveal it. A team is born when self-doubt is mastered but also when it is tested to the limit and all perform. The cup win goes down to two players who produced from the deepest recesses of their being when it was needed most.

We continue to pour scorn on our opponents of the time and glory in that memorable day, while living with the tacit acceptance and realisation years later that no other team could elicit such a response to the depth and degree of their challenge. We left the field completely spent, our nerves and core frayed at the edges, because they had taken us to the edge. Disdain and hatred was the over-riding emotion for the scale of their challenge and relief that it came up just short. No respect for our beaten adversaries - they were evil bastards.

We pay homage to a truly extraordinary man, Mr. Malachy Kilbride - who passed away on St Stephen's Day - who fashioned a championship-winning team on this occasion and did so by imbuing his own sense of comradehood into the side, allied to conferring a real sense of the value of work and unshakeable character by way of precept and honest example that Alexei Stakhanov would have been proud of. A remarkable and virtuous man whose intelligence and principles were reflected in how the team played.

The team that he prepared took the field knowing that the words emblazoned on the crest of the school, Hasta La Victoria Siempre, were so much more than merely a school motto. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his guidance and path-finding leadership that none of us could ever hope to repay, save to say that his rallying call, the words of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, quoted many times before we went into battle, will live with us forever.

And when the clean operation against the tyrant

Ends at the end of the day

There and then set for the final battle

We'll be at your side.

And when the wild beast licks his wounded side

Where the dart of Cuba hits him

We'll be at your side

With proud hearts.

Hasta La Victoria Siempre.