Sin City Irish RFC

[edit] A Lost Begining

The Sin City Irish are a splinter team off of the Las Vegas Blackjacks.

In the summer of '98, several of the players felt they should try to start a new team to maximize the participation of players on the Blackjacks. So, they entered a team in the Las Vegas Midnight 7's under the name of "The Firemen", and never looked back. That group entered another 7's tourney under the name of Sin City Irish RFC which has remained our operational name. (That 2nd tourney was a good effort, but the team never arrived at its destination. It seems that the steering mechanism of the vehicle in which they were traveling had its own conciousness, and divereted them from LA, where the tournament was to be held, to San Diego, where they had their own little tourney.)

In any event, the Sin City Irish had been born. The numbers grew gradually as players that wanted to get a chance to get on the pitch began to show up at practice. Soon the numbers went to Flagstaff that fall to participate in their annual 10's tournament. They preformed dismally, but had a good time.

[edit] Building a Team

As the team started to shape up, officers were elected and Chris Sullivan was the 1st President. After some heated discussion, it was decided to approach the Arizona Union for membership, and submitted to the Arizona Union their desire to join. After deliberating, they agreed that the Irish would be a good addition, and accepted them as a probationary team for the inagural year, 1999. The Irish had a full schedule and were required to play both "A" and "B" side games at each match. It built character and brought them together not only as a team but as a group of friends as well. They finished that year at 5 and 5, beating the Old Pueblo Lions in an opening match in Las Vegas, won two other home games, and got 2 other wins in forfiets, as some teams decided not to travel for a probationary team.

That following year, the Arizona Union felt that they had demonstrated a worthiness and legitamacy as a club, and gave the Irish full member status. The official name also changed with the insistance of politics to The Henderson Irishmen RFC. It seems that one of our outstanding politicians thought that the Sin City designation was not condusive to a good image and offered a substatial contribution to the team if the original name would change. It was changed officially, didn't get the money, and operate under the original name of Sin City Irish.