Last Saturday the 28th of January, our late former president Thomas Magner was honoured at the Leinster Branch and IRFU Junior clubs hall of fame for wonderful service to their clubs and rugby in general. Tom’s family were at the ceremony to collect his award as seen in the attached photos, his wife Mary, daughter Marissa and her husband Scott, as well as Tom’s brothers Philip and Ronan, his sister in law Mary, nephew Luke and good friend Dermot Madden all attended. Tom was a great servant to the club and is dearly missed by all here in SRFC.

Below is the write up on Tom in the Leinster branch programme.

Thomas Magner passed away sadly on the 9th of July 2022.

Despite attending St. Pauls college, a great nursery for rugby football, Thomas never really engaged in rugby at school level, preferring to concentrate his energies on his academic endeavors, graduating in 1978

He joined AIB on leaving school and completed a computer science degree at night and later graduated with an MBA from UCD in 1984.

This led him to a long career in AIB where at this stage he truly caught the “rugby bug”. He played and managed with AIB Rugby Club when they took over the old St.Mary’s RFC grounds in Terenure when they moved to Templeville Road.

Although AIB played in the Metropolitan Leagues their main emphasis was on touring and this was something that Thomas embraced from the beginning until his untimely passing.

Thomas married the love of his life Mary in 1985, and their daughter Marissa was born in 1987. Shortly thereafter Thomas was cajoled by his brother Philip into joining Suttonians RFC and played for many years across the front row on J3 and J4 teams. It was old school social rugby and Thomas loved the camaraderie and off field activities as much as anything on it.

Thomas also played and contributed to the Leinster Harlequins a touring Club established by the late Stan Bolton and Bill Nelson and made up of representatives from the leading Junior Clubs in the Metro Area.

As the AIB team was made up of players from various clubs, Thomas became well known and universally liked throughout Leinster and he had a particularly strong affinity for DSLP RC and Bective Rangers FC, the latter where his mother and father had first met at a dance back in the late 1950s.

Due to his heritage, he also had a strong bond with Connacht Rugby and with work commitments also seeing him travel frequently to the UK, Thomas also developed a strong affinity with London Irish.

As his playing career fizzled out, Thomas became a first-class administrator. Not only did he continue to manage the AIB Club, he filled many various roles in Suttonians, you only had to ask and he was “onboard”.

Thomas filled the role of Honorary Secretary here in Suttonians RFC for three years and was an extremely proud President of the club in the 2019/2020 season. In addition, and for over a decade Thomas served as the Suttonians representative on the Metropolitan Committee and his contribution there as an administrator was greatly admired and appreciated. He was never one for saying much or speaking for the sake of it so when he did choose to speak people chose to listen.

In recent years, Thomas also represented Suttonians RFC on the LBIRFU Executive from 2020 to his passing.

Thomas was old school - for him rugby football was as much about the social aspect as anything that happened on the pitch. He loved touring, be it Suttonians RFC, Leinster Rugby or Connacht Rugby and particularly following Ireland in the 6 Nations, often with his beloved wife Mary alongside him.

Thomas’s passing has left a major void in Suttonains, it feels odd to arrive at the club and not see him asking the fiver at the gate for league games or indeed perched on a high stool after the match.

He has also left a void on the Metropolitan Area Committee where his appetite for hard work and strong interest in club issues will be greatly missed by all and his presence very difficult to fill.

Tom's brothers Ronan and Philip

Tom's daughter Marissa and wife Mary