Inside Track with John McIntyre
Connacht’s season has just grinded to a halt with last weekend’s heavy loss to the Ospreys in their final RaboDirect Pro12 game of the current campaign, but already there is a justified sense of giddiness about what the future holds for the province after the recent signing of former All-Black Mils Muliaina on a one year contract.
To attract a New Zealander of Muliaina’s pedigree – a World Cup winner who scored 34 international tries and was capped 100 times – to the Sportsground represents a huge coup for Connacht and, in the process, has rattled the cages of the other provinces if Munster Head Coach Rob Penney’s outburst about the deal last week is taken at face value.
Sure, Connacht don’t have the same restrictions on overseas signings but, in every other respect, rugby’s Western outpost is not on an equal footing, especially in terms of annual budgets. Against that background, it has been a tough struggle to establish the professional game in Connacht and it’s only a decade ago since the IRFU made a ham-fisted effort to cut the province adrift altogether.
In the intervening years, Connacht have battled manfully – on and off the field – to ensure such a threat doesn’t manifest itself again. The capacity and facilities at the Sportsground have been greatly enhanced; core support continues to increase; while the team’s marketing department should take a bow in terms of keeping Connacht in the public eye.
Granted, the team’s loss to win ratio has hardly improved, but Connacht are now a much more competitive and consistent force. Sure, they still endue the odd tonking and their wretched record against the other Irish provinces continues, but even a couple of seasons ago it would have been impossible to imagine them inflicting a glorious away defeat on Toulouse in the Heineken Cup.
That was undoubtedly Connacht’s single greatest ever triumph and though reality bit in the return leg and, more especially, in their away trouncing by Saracens, crowds continue to increase and the team’s profile has never been higher – a remarkable state of affairs when you consider Connacht have not won any silverware in the professional era and are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future either.
Yet, supporters will always rally behind a team which often heroically battles to defy the odds and there is no doubt that Connacht have established a bond with their people on College Road. Sure, they attract a high quota of fans who pop along just for the ride, the atmosphere and the pint, but once the turnstiles are clicking merrily it really doesn’t matter what the bait is.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
