'It's devastating': Cork club misses out on €10,000 rugby trip

A CORK rugby team say they have lost between €8,000 and €10,000, and had to miss out on a major trip after their flight was cancelled last minute this week.

Ryanair cancelled over 300 flights across Europe due to a French air traffic control strike, with Sundays Well Rugby Club’s flight from Dublin to La Rochelle on Thursday among them.

“We ended up stranded in Ireland and having to pay out a lot of money,” Liam Maher, of Sundays Well Rugby Club told The Echo.

“We are Ireland’s first mixed-ability rugby team, and we are in our 10th anniversary year, so we had planned to go to La Rochelle as a celebration of our 10 years.”

They chose La Rochelle because Ronan O’Gara coaches there, as does Donnacha Ryan — who used to play for Sundays Well.

Some 53 of them were travelling, planning to play a game against a French team, and go to the La Rochelle vs Toulon match.

However, on Wednesday evening they discovered their flight was cancelled.

“We might get our money back for the flight, but we’ve lost €10,000 in hotel charges — the hotel will have a policy of cancelling within 48 hours and we cancelled within 10,” said Mr Maher.

“We had tickets for the match and restaurants booked too, and we spent a lot of time organising the trip. It was four months of work, then all of a sudden it was cancelled — it’s devastating to have that happen.

“There’s a couple of people in the group quite upset about it. There’s people with disabilities not able to comprehend what’s going on or understand the change,” he added.

However, he said: “We’re a group of positive people, and we’ve decided to make the best of it”.

So, instead of the bus to Dublin Airport, they decided to jump on a train to Cobh.

“John Gately in the Commodore Hotel put on a lunch for us, we went to Spike Island, had a great tour and learned all the history, and we’re heading to Galway [on Friday] for two nights — so it’s not a bad outcome,” Mr Maher said earlier this week.

“It’s a disappointment, yes, and we’re out money, but we’ve come together as a team and are looking at the bright side and planning to have fun in Ireland for the weekend.”