By JOHN FALLON

CONNACHT will have a reduced attendance of just under 4,000 supporters for their home matches for more than half the season before the opening of the redeveloped Dexcom Stadium will increase the capacity to 10,500.

The spectacular €40m redevelopment of the renamed Sportsground will be finished in January with the official opening scheduled for their clash with Leinster at the end of that month.

By then Connacht, who lost five home league games last season including the clash with Munster in MacHale Park in Castlebar, will have played five URC games at Dexcom Stadium, while the work is going on, as well as two games in the Challenge Cup.

They will have four league games at the fully developed Dexcom Stadium for the remainder of the season plus any league or Challenge Cup games that they qualify for.

Most of the attendees for the opening half of the campaign for the league games against Benetton, Scarlets, Bulls, Sharks and Ulster, along with Challenge Cup ties against Black Lions and Montauban, will be season ticket holders with around 3,600 sold so far.

That is the highest number of season tickets Connacht have sold since the 2016/17 campaign after they won the Pro12 crown. The capacity of the completed Dexcom Stadium will be 10,500 but this can be extended on occasion to 12,500 if terracing is installed behind each goal. However, this terracing will have to be temporary as the venue continues to stage greyhound racing a couple of times each week.

Next month Connacht will unveil hospitality and other corporate packages for their games, along with a host of options available for non-match activity in the vast catering and opening spaces in the new North Stand which has been designed to be divisible for smaller meeting groups and social events.

In addition the indoor pitch in the High Performance Centre, which is half the size of a regular pitch, will be made available for a variety of events which could range from college exams to exhibition centre (there are two large door entrances for vehicles and machinery) while concerts may also be considered.

New head coach Stuart Lancaster appreciates that the best way of filling seats and all the bars and catering facilities is by winning matches and he’s pleased with how pre-season has gone as they prepare for Saturday’s URC opener against Benetton.

They defeated Pat Lam’s Bristol Bears 54-12 away and then backed it up with a 40-5 win at Sale Sharks in warm-up games. Each of the sides, including Connacht, were missing frontline players, but there was a lot of positives for Lancaster in those matches.

“The games have gone well, obviously Bristol weren’t at full strength but we still put 50 points on them and 40 points on Sale. That’s what I would have asked for, but it’s pre-season so the true test comes this Saturday but also for the next five weeks.

“I always believed coming in that the foundations were strong and felt that Connacht had a high ceiling.

“Last year I think they were frustrated that they didn’t achieve more, it you look at the metrics of line breaks, defenders beaten, attack was a really strong part of Connacht’s game.

“The bit I felt needed to balance out was the defence but also game management. It’s all well having a great attacking mindset but if you come 13th that’s not the outcome we all want.

“So there’s been tweaks made to the foundations of the game, but within that it’s strong and the squad benefited from the three British and Irish Lions and the six lads going on the Ireland tour,” he said.

He’s heading into his first game in charge of Connacht with a relatively clean bill of health and with 45 players training in the September sunshine in Galway on Monday afternoon when the media were given a tour of the new stand and HPC, he says he’s going to rotate players over the opening block of five URC games.

Lancaster has been used to working with star-studded squads in Leinster and Racing 92 and while Connacht are a different proposition he’s taking charge at a time of unprecedented representation for the province, with three players — Mack Hansen, Bundee Aki and Finlay Bealham — returning from the victorious Lions tour while half a dozen others — Cian Prendergast and five debutants Shayne Bolton, Hugh Gavin, Ben Murphy, Jack Aungier and Darragh Murray — played for Ireland on the summer tour to Georgia and Portugal.

“The Lions boys, they’re targeting around round three or four,” added Lancaster. “Obviously Mack’s still ongoing in terms of his recovery from his foot injury but he was running around out there. He’s not actually done a session yet but he’s close. Bundee’s training, Finlay’s training and so they’ll be back soon. So, we’re in good shape.”

Meanwhile, Lancaster said there has been no discussion with the IRFU about him taking on the Irish job at some stage in the future and that his sole focus at the moment is ensuring that Connacht hit the ground running when they host Benetton Rugby on Saturday evening (7:45pm).

Lancaster said previously that there is no connection with him signing just a two year contract with Connacht which will end in the 2027 World Cup year when a lot of countries change their international coaches, although he said he will still have plenty to offer in a few years time.

And the former England and Leinster coach reiterated that this week. “It’s not something I’ve remotely discussed with him or even thought about, to be honest,” said Lancaster when he was asked if taking over from his former England assistant coach Andy Farrell had been discussed when he spoke to IRFU performance director David Humphreys prior to taking the Connacht job.

Lancaster said that his contract with Racing 92, which came to a premature halt earlier this year, was originally for four years taking him to 2027, so this new job takes him to that point.

“I signed for Leinster for nine months in the first year. I only signed until the end of that season in 2016 and then there was another two years after that.

So there were always two-year contracts in Leinster. But things are going well. What tends to happen in these situations is after the first year you end up having a conversation and moving things on anyway.

“We’ll see. People often ask me about international rugby and club rugby, international rugby is amazing. The highs are really high, you’re away … watching the Lions series, thinking ‘I’d love to be involved in that, coaching’ and same with international rugby.

“Then you have big, long gaps in it as well. I love the coaching piece as well and I’m happy coaching in the club environment for the time being.

“I’ll be 57 in two years’ time, there’s plenty more in me,” said Lancaster.

Pictured: New Connacht Head Coach Stuart Lancaster who faces his first competitive match against Benetton in the United Rugby Championship at Dexcom Stadium on Saturday.