WHEN CONNACHT TALK about a sense of togetherness and unity having driven them to their first-ever trophy, they aren’t exaggerating.
The incident involving Robbie Henshaw’s stolen laptop in the Slí Burca housing estate has been the most famous illustration that Connacht stick up for each other off the pitch, while all the evidence on the pitch has backed up their talk.
For Saturday’s Pro12 final, Connacht flew every single player who had played for the province this season into Edinburgh to be part of the their shot at glory and the subsequent celebrations.
However, there were four young players from Connacht’s academy who had trained with Pat Lam’s senior squad but hadn’t featured on the pitch in this campaign and were therefore set to be left behind.
With Connacht having used 46 players on the pitch this season, there was naturally a financial limit to Connacht’s desire to bring every single member of the organisation, and those four academy players were told they would miss out on the trip to Scotland.
Determined to remain united until the end, Connacht’s players chipped in to raise the funds required to bring Ciarán Gaffney, Cormac Brennan, Saba Meunargia and Rory Moloney to Murrayfield for the final.
“We had four players this year that trained with us, didn’t get any game time,” explained Connacht captain John Muldoon after the 20-10 win over Leinster.
“One of the lads [Brennan] was on the bench for the Ulster game and for various reasons they had to cut the line somewhere and they decided not to bring four of the lads that hadn’t played.
“That was obviously the management’s perspective; 46 lads is a lot to bring. But the lads got together and chipped in and brought the other four lads, and that shows what the team is about.
“The fact that we’re not willing to leave the four lads behind, and the four lads are inside in the dressing room and they deserve to be here as much as anybody else, and that shows the togetherness and what it means to everyone.
“To me that sums up the group massively.”
Head coach Lam also underlined his own delight to have seen such a positive act from his squad in the build-up to Saturday’s final.
“I’d just like to back John up on that, because that was massive,” said Lam.
“The whole squad came, and we took the academy boys that played, and there were four guys who came in half-way through and trained, but they hadn’t got on the field. So we had to cut the numbers somewhere, as far as finances go.
“And then Mul showed up in our office, to myself and [team manager] Tim Allnutt, and said ‘we’d like take those four academy boys as well.’
“I said ‘great’, and the boys all chipped in.”
– First published 01.00
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
Genuine question to those that know the sport- is Duffy up to the required standard to win a belt?
@Paul P O’Sullivan: Duffy is a quailty fighter great on the ground decent stand up …. but i think the belt is just out of his reach. Hopefully im wrong in saying that would love to see him as champion. Mcgregor vs duffy croke park 2018 be mentel
@Paul P O’Sullivan: Never say never but tis unlikely. He was soundly outclassed by Poirier who, while a good fighter, isn’t a championship fighter either. Duffy has excellent standup and a good offensive ground game but doesn’t have the wrestling to stop high level grapplers who can control him from top. That said love watching him fight and would be happy to be proved wrong. Also shouldn’t have signed a 7 fight contract…way too long.
@Paul P O’Sullivan: doesn’t take much to win a belt. The talent pool is very shallow in mma compared to real sports. In soccer, basketball, boxing, rugby etc the world class generally rise to the top and “upsets” are infrequent among those teams, fighters and players. But MMA is like a bar fight, sure it makes it more unpredictable but anyone can beat anyone really.
@Paul P O’Sullivan: Declan and Graham are pretty accurate. Brian obviously hasn’t the foggiest! He’s very skilled and given the right matchups he can go very far. Wrestling is his one weakness but training in Tristar with the likes of GSP and Rory McDonald will bring that on a lot. Unfortunately for him he is in one of the toughest weight classes so he’ll have to beat some killers to win the belt. There’s a bit of a queue forming at the top of the division so getting to the shot is a challange in itself. Possible but unlikely!
@Des Morrissey: haha nice and defensive there. everything I spoke was the truth. It’s a jack of all trades “sport” and you know it. Anyone can beat anyone on any day and that doesn’t happen more than 2% of the time in any proper sport. Revolving door of champions in all but one division. Shouldn’t happen with “world class” athletes in a proper “sport”. Should be some kind of consistency. I still enjoy watching it sometimes though in fairness. Just saying anyone can become champion.
Can’t wait for UFC 217, it should be a cracker. I’m not too keen on bisping v st Pierre but TJ v Cody should be an absolute cracker all going well, JJ will run through Rose and Masvidal v wonderboy could arguably be the dark horse for fight of the night. Duffy should be too good for James Vick and hopefully he’ll get a big name after this.
Cheers lads
What channel is this on ?