Archive News
Elwood excited about ConnachtÕs first home tie
Date Published: {J}
Dara Bradley
IT is eight and a half years since more than 2,000 people under the Friends of Connacht Rugby banner took to the streets of Dublin and marched on IRFU headquarters at Lansdowne Road, demanding that the union would abandon plans that would have led to the expulsion of Connacht from professional provincial rugby.
This Saturday, as Connacht Rugby faces into its most anticipated season of the professional era, up to 3,000 season ticket holders, Connacht fans of the newly established supporters club, Connacht Clan, will gather at Eyre Square and march to the Sportsground.
The rally is being organised to mark the foundation of Connacht Clan as the province play their first home game of the inaugural RaboDirect Pro12 season against Llanelli Scarlets at College Road (kick-off, 3.15pm). The symbolism may be unintended; but Saturday’s march heralding a new dawn for rugby out west and a celebration of the massive strides Connacht has taken, contrasts sharply with 2003.
With the optimism comes the pressure to perform; pressure to keep the 2,500 additional supporters who bought season tickets compared with last year, to stay coming to see Connacht and spread the brand; and pressure for results.
Head Coach Eric Elwood, excited about the first home game in the newly revamped Sportsground, said he is hoping his players can respond positively to that expectation.
“The expectations are there, there is pressure, there’s a buzz around Galway, season ticket sales are up, the new stand is taking shape and people are looking forward to it. But it’s the pressure we want, we want to be there, we want to be playing the best, competing at the highest level. We’re trying to build the brand and a lot of work has gone in on and off the pitch.
“It’s been a long process for a lot of us and it’s taken a long time and we want to continue to build and continue to attract more people to the Sportsground. We’re an all-inclusive team for all of the province and we want to be competitive week in week out and this weekend is the start of it. We’re hoping people will come and roar and help us on the field with support from the terraces,” he said.
Elwood praised his charges resilience and particularly defensive effort against Treviso, in searing 35 degrees heat, last weekend, which the visitors won 11-9 but there is scope for improvement in Connacht’s attack, he said.
“I’m absolutely delighted with the win. It was our first game against a team that doesn’t lose that often at home – they won eight out of 11 home games last year. So we showed great character and resilience. They’re very physical but I was happy with the way we defended the set-pieces and driving maul.
“We didn’t allow them to score a try, which was also pleasing. So to play and defend in such a physical match in the conditions and high temperatures was good. We were resilient and our attitude was right and we defended well. We’re under no illusions, it’s just one game out of 22 but it’s a good start and we can build from it,” he said. He was pleased that despite the ferocity of the battle, the players pulled through without any serious injuries.
Not since the start of the 2006/2007 season has Connacht commenced a league campaign with back-to-back wins.
Last year, having easily accounted for Newport Gwent Dragons at home in the league opener, it was the Scarlets who sensationally denied them breaking that particular duck in Wales last September when the home side came from 20-13 behind at the break only to bounce back to win 35-33 courtesy of a penalty deep in injury-time.
This weekend Scarlets are missing ten of their most recognisable and formidable players with Jonathan Davies, Tavis Knoyle, fly-half Rhys Priestland, youngsters George North on the wing and centre Scott Williams, all on international duty in New Zealand at the World Cup.
They are also without talisman and deadly-accurate place kicker Stephen Jones at outside half although new, young recruit Dan Newton proved his worth with the boot at number 10 last weekend against Aironi where he kicked 19 points, five penalties and two conversions, in their convincing 32-9 victory over the Italians at Parc Y Scarlets in the campaign opener.
Elwood doesn’t ‘buy in’ to the theory that the Scarlets or other teams shorn of internationals are necessarily that weakened and he expects another testing afternoon on Saturday.
“They are missing players but these teams with international players are missing guys for the Six Nations and the World Cup and they can plan for that. They have the big squads for that and they can plan and bring in the players. We have a small squad so it’s the same difference.
“They’re coming here with a very good team and we’re under no illusions about the task we face. Scarlets are a different team and a different prospect and play a different brand of rugby to Treviso so we will change the way we play. Any time we’ve played Scarlets it has been a free-flowing, open match,” he added.
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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