Shamrock Bowl final touches down in Tallaght Stadium

THE Dublin Rebels will face defending champions Belfast Trojans in the Shamrock Bowl on Sunday, August 7 at Tallaght Stadium.

The Rebels reached the Shamrock Bowl by defeating University of Limerick Vikings 20-12 in a close semi-final game.

Belfast Trojans return to the Shamrock Bowl final for the fifth consecutive year with a narrow 10-7 victory over a much improved UCD team.

This year’s game is expected to be a very competitive contest – when the finalists faced each other in the regular season, the Rebels won by a single point.

The 2016 show down marks an important anniversary as it will be the 30th edition of the annual championship game.

American football in Ireland is going from strength to strength. The sport is in a period of unprecedented expansion with membership having doubled in the past four years.

This year a record 23 teams and over 1,000 players competed at national level in the Irish American Football Associations kitted football leagues.

The Shamrock Bowl gives Irish fans the opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of American football at close quarters in a family friendly environment.

Tickets can be obtained via the IAFA website – www.americanfootball.ie or outside the stadium on game day. 

The Dublin Rebels are one of the oldest teams in the IAFA with a long history of success. They won a record seven Shamrock Bowls between 2003 and 2011 and are making their first appearance in the big game since 2013.

They have rebuilt their roster over the past couple of years by adding a lot of talented young athletes in tandem with re-signing some Irish players who’d been playing semi-professional football in Germany.

The Belfast Trojans are one of the best amateur teams in all of Europe. They have won the past four Shamrock Bowls and are the current holders of the Atlantic Cup – an International tournament for the champions of various amateur leagues in Western Europe. Earlier this year, they narrowly lost to US college football team Sewanee University in a challenge game played in Belfast – thus underlining how competitive Irish American football has become recently.