Archive News
Connacht fall again at bogey venue
Date Published: {J}
Ulster 27
Connacht 16
Rob Murphy
IN RAVENHILL
The report card on Connacht’s season will wait for another two weeks but this game told us a lot about where the province stands after year one of the Eric Elwood era. Ulster’s class and experience told in the final 10 minutes here, but a ferocious display from the visiting pack at Ravenhill will have given the Westerners hope.
Overall, the report card will probably show that Elwood’s men are progressing in areas where they had been stuck in neutral for years. That’s good, they have jumped one place on last year in the table and the average tries for and against have both improved considerably. A bucket load of hard earned bonus points and a competitive edge in every game all adds up to hope.
Yet this game also showed the negatives, the lack of depth in key positions, the significant loss that some of the leaving stars will be, especially Hagen at tighthead. In the backline, Connacht haven’t moved forward enough, and Troy Nathan’s selection at 12 continues to baffle most observers as while he’s as committed and honest as you could hope for, he struggles to impose himself in the role.
Yet overall there is a feeling that Connacht are ‘fronting-up’ and the confidence in the camp is higher than ever before. They were hammered on their last two visits to Belfast but on this occasion they were the better team for an hour. The missing link seems to be that bit more depth in the squad and that comes down to resources.
Ulster exploded out of the blocks and struck first with a great try from Rory Best. After a good drive from Jerry Cronin, Humphreys passed back inside to set Adam D’Arcy away. The full back drew the cover and supplied Cave who did likewise to allow Rory Best score under the posts. Humphreys added the extras.
The response from Connacht was hugely encouraging as they didn’t let such a simple blow set them back. They answered by winning the restart and setting up an attack that led to a well struck drop goal from Ian Keatley.
Thoughts from the home side that an easy afternoon was in store were dissipating although they were almost in for a second try only for Humphreys’ kick through to be charged down by Mike McCarthy. Fionn Carr almost broke clear when he collected the rebound only for Darren Cave to make a vital and probably try saving tackle as the Connacht winger had an open field to attack.
Dan McFarland will be especially pleased with counter-rucking of the Connacht pack throughout the first half and one such example resulted in a penalty which Keatley was unable to convert from long range.
The Connacht pack were well on top in the first half, the excellent Johnny O’Connor and man-of-the-match McCarthy led the way while the return of John Muldoon was having an impact. Their hard work created another half chance which ended with Nathan’s cross-kick to Eoin Griffin which was asking a little much of the winger.
Niva Ta’auso picked up an eye injury soon after and while he was down injured Ulster crafted a score out of nothing in a virtual length-of-the-field move. The 42 time South African capped Ruan Pienaar took a quick tap from a penalty in Ulster’s 22 and his break led to Humphreys skinning Cronin just over half way with the pass releasing D’Arcy to run in with Humphreys converting.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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