Another Kick in the Head for Connacht Rugby

In what way is the ERC’s cavalier attitude to smaller rugby nations different from the IRFU’S cavalier attitude to its smallest province? On the face of it, they seem birds of a feather.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, a recap. The ERC is the organisation that runs the Heineken Cup. France and England have the richest clubs and they don’t think they’re getting a fair shake in the competition because they have to qualify from their own quite competitive domestic leagues whereas teams from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy do not. The French and English clubs are petitioning the ERC to rejig the Heineken Cup qualification rules so that participation is based on merit, rather than geography.

The Irish Times’ rugby correspondent Gerry Thornley can be relied on for a regular one thousand words of scandalised outrage that money should talk in these circumstances. He, like the majority of the Irish rugby establishment, is utterly horrified at the prospect of any of the advantages three of the Irish provinces have traditionally enjoyed in the Heineken Cup being diluted by one whit, jot, or iota.

And in the green corner: the IRFU is the organisation that runs Irish rugby. Leinster, Munster and Ulster are the provinces with traditionally strong rugby traditions in Ireland, and they always get a fair shake in domestic Irish rugby because any time Connacht ever shows any vague chance of improving someone comes along and poaches their players.

Connacht screams long and loud when this happens, at which time the rugby establishment puts on its best hurt face and says: sorry little buddy. We think you’re doing great here in the bog but, you know, money talks. Of course you can have players. You just can’t have any ones that are any good.

How Connacht rugby gets a following at all is beyond your current correspondent. Sisyphus has a better chance of getting that boulder to the top of the hill than Connacht ever has of being a presence in European rugby.

Leinster, Ulster and Munster all know that there’s only so much food to go around. They could diet for a few years themselves in other to better the nation as a whole, or they could say what we have, we hold. Pull up the drawbridge, and let nature take its course.

They should be careful what they wish for. While the IRFU’s lack of vision is crushing Connacht now, it may crush all of Irish rugby in the end. It is a fact that the Irish provinces can’t survive as independent financial entities. They are dependent on the IRFU and the IRFU should extract a quid pro quo for that dependency by imposing quotas on the specialist positions so the national team will never be short of props or out-halves. How can they look out for Connacht when they barely have the wit to look out for themselves?

This season has been Connacht rugby in a nutshell. The season began with Dan Parks debut at outhalf for Connacht. Dan Parks, an Australian who won an astonishing 67 caps for Scotland. Not so much a has-been as a never-was. It was like Galway United had signed Emile Heskey, and expected to wire it up to Barcelona the next time they were at the Noukamp.

And then, by God, Parks, the clapped out old rust-bucket, found a vein of form. Nobody was going to mistake Dan Parks for Dan Carter, but Connacht played him to his strengths – the boot, the boot and nothing but the boot – and got some victories on the board, none more impressive than the win over Biarritz in Galway last Friday. Connacht looked like they were finally going somewhere.

But while Parks made the headlines, second row Mike McCarthy was the star of the team. So much so that he played for Ireland in the autumn internationals and looked completely at home on the greatest stage. For Connacht, the future looked bright.

So it fits the pattern, then, that McCarthy has already packed his bags and will be gone by the summer. To Leinster, of all places. And the more Connacht howl the more the usual suspects shrug their shoulders and say whaddya gonna do? That’s business. McCarthy is only following the money. It’s a professional game, after all.

The ERC know it’s a professional game too. They’ll do the math of the big clubs and the little clubs and the big countries and little countries and give the IRFU in the end exactly what the IRFU are giving to Connacht. The shaft. It will be a bad for Irish rugby but with their scandalous treatment of Connacht, it’s very hard to say the IRFU won’t deserve it.

Won't Someone Put Connacht Out of their Misery?

After thirteen straight defeats, and a fourteenth as inevitable on Saturday as another tax increase or cursed referendum, the people involved in Connacht rugby need to ask themselves why do they bloody bother.

It’s hard to love something that doesn’t love you back, and there are no signs of love for Elwood and Connacht right now. Connacht lost in Italy last Saturday, to a team who would be the Gaelic football equivalent of Sligo. You expect to beat them, but every now and again they’re going to hand you your hat.

This Saturday, Connacht have to travel to Toulouse, which is the equivalent of playing Kerry in Tralee in high summer. If Connacht get less of a beating than the Huguenots suffered on Saint Bartholomew’s Day they can consider themselves very lucky. A seventy-point pasting could be on the cards, and the -26 available on the rouge et noir looks a gimme to your correspondent.

It’s one thing to say you should never quit, but that only applies to a fair fight. Connacht aren’t in a fair fight. Connacht have nothing like the funds or the resources that the other provinces have. You won’t fight anyone with your hands tied behind your back. You’ve handed your wooden sword, clapped on the back and told: on you go son. The Romans are thattaway.

Most wretched of all is the patronizing way the Connacht games are covered in the national media. How galling can it be for the players and supporters to be patted on the head and told what brave little meneen they are? Where's the pride listening to that?

If the people involved in Connacht Rugby do want to show some pride, they could realise that the IRFU needs Connacht more than Connacht needs the IRFU. The clubs will continue to play – people who want to play will be able to do so. Players who want to pay professionally will always have that chance. If you want to be paid for playing rugby, there are more towns than Galway in the world.

Ordinary people in Connacht itself support either Munster or Leinster anyway. Munster, because they were the first, a sporting personification of the Spirit of the Celtic Tiger. And Leinster, because even if you haven’t been privately educated, all that yak about “Munster by the grace of God” gets tiresome very quickly.

An Spailpín’s not very trusting nature suspects that the IRFU are content to keep Connacht barefoot, pregnant and tied to the kitchen sink because all four provinces are vital to the IRFU’s marketing of itself professional rugby product. “The four proud provinces of Ireland,” as that dreadful song goes. They want Connacht to exist to add lustre to the other three, but for no other reason. Back to the scullery, Cinders, and damn well know your place.

Well, when what’s left of Connacht come home from Toulouse, maybe it’s time to blow the whistle on the IRFU and start demanding some rights. If the IRFU want Connacht to exist a province, they need to support Connacht rugby.

The whole thing about Connacht as a “development” province is a joke and a nonsense. As soon as any player shows any signs of talent, he scurries away to Munster or Leinster, showing all the loyalty of a rat. Connacht must then make up the numbers with international players. These aren’t great old pros in the autumn of their careers. They’re not so much Dougie Howlett as Doogie Howser.

If the IRFU wants to support Connacht Rugby, let them go ahead and support Connacht Rugby. If they just want to patronize the west, Connacht Rugby should fold it tents and tell the IRFU go hang. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Connacht Rugby Has No Future - Set the Cinderella Province Free

Munster’s destruction at the hands of Toulon last week was more than the end of an era in Irish sport and culture. It was also the end of the illusion that Connacht rugby has any future and should be closed down for the good of all concerned.

The IRFU are determined to talk up Connacht and the rugby writers of Ireland are clearly instructed to stay on message on the topic. But what the IRFU say exists in inverse proportion to what they do and, as anybody can tell you, talk is cheap. Actions count.

The IRFU announced some policy initiative or other before Christmas to give Connacht the support the IRFU claim it deserves as a development team. Seasoned watchers may have wondered what the big deal about this was, as a development is what Connacht were meant to be for the past decade or so. The ugly reality behind the high rhetoric came three days later, when three prominent players announced they were on the way out. People voted with their feet.

Neil Francis, though flawed in many respects, is an accurate barometer of Dublin 4 rugby. Francis has made it quite clear that the idea of a move to Connacht appals any right thinking, fin-headed rugby player inside the M50. And what the Munster defeat does is put the big provinces on the same side of the players. They have no interest in losing players that they need themselves.

Suppose you’re the coach of Munster. You’re watching the rapid aging of your golden generation and you’re coming to terms with the realisation that the younger generation aren’t coming through as you would have liked – O’Leary and Buckley, for instance. And now you’re being asked to sign off other up and coming players to give someone else a dig out? I don’t think so.

Prior to the introduction of the Italian teams this year every team in the Magners League last year had played at least one season of Heineken Cup bar Connacht. Every one. After ten years, that’s no longer a coincidence.

Connacht is falling between two stools. It’s not a development province, because while players have come through it’s been more or less by accident. The other provinces hang onto their own good players and would be mad not to – you didn’t see Ulster sending Paddy Wallace west to take some of the wrinkles out of his game.

And Connacht isn’t a viable professional entity because all the provinces are IRFU dependent, with their central contracts and what have you. Connacht is more dependent than the other three because there is a stronger history of rugby in the other three provinces but the IRFU will only spend enough money to kept Connacht barefoot and dressed in rags. Cinderella got less abuse from the ugly sisters.

And that’s not good enough. The rugby public of Connacht deserve better than to be treated like the Union’s mushrooms. Why persist with the idea of provinces anyway? Ulster is the only one that accurately reflects its people. Munster’s fanbase is more than the geographical province and Leinster’s is less.

The IRFU don’t need a Connacht and the good rugby people of Connacht don’t need being strung along by the IRFU. Set Cinders free from the scullery. She’s scrubbed enough pots by now.

Mistaken Identity at Ravenhill?

An Spailpín Fánach doesn’t normally comment on the Heineken Cup rugby, as your faithful narrator hasn’t a team to support in the competition, and wouldn’t be able to watch them even if he had, being too poor to afford Sky Sports. However, tomorrow’s clash at Ravenhill between Ulster and Stade Francais is nearly worth getting into the motor and hitting the M1 for. Not because of the rugby, but because of the fashion.

Stade Francais are very francais indeed. Some years ago, they caused eyebrows to be raised in traditional circles when they played in a pink away jersey, not the most macho of shades. But the French are who they are, and they shrugged and got on with it. However, when State run out at Ravenhill tomorrow in their other away jersey, they might the locals object to more than the colour.

The jersey in question is at the top of this post. An Spailpín thinks it’s quite beautiful, actually, although your correspondent is an ardent traditionalist in the matter of jerseys generally. The lady featured on the jersey is Blanche de Castille, queen and regent of France at the start of the 13th century, and a woman noted in her day for taking no nonsense from the Tan.

Two thumbs up from An Spailpín Fánach on that one. However, the faithful in Ravenhill may not have access to Wikipedia, and in that absence, they may take one look at the head tilted sideways and the crown, and think “Popery! Close the gates! Close the gates!”

An Spailpín Fánach remembers the misfortunate Noel Thompson of BBC Northern Ireland reading the news when Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was released, and having to keep a straight face while intoning that “some church groups here have warned that the film may lead to Mariology and virgin worship.”

Don’t forget, there was holy – what else? – war up the way when a Heineken Cup game was played on the Sabbath, something the ERC had to promise would never happen again. What the locals will make of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Bride of the Canticle, Eve’s Tears Redeeming and Immaculate Mediatrix of All Graces taking second-phase pop give-and-go ball on the loop to get inside Andrew Trimble and dot down in the corner is anybody’s guess.






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