Archive News
Fit-again McSharry returns for difficult away league tie against Cardiff Blues
Date Published: {J}
Dara Bradley
AFTER a five-week break from the RaboDirect Pro 12 competition, Connacht return to league action tonight with a tricky away assignment with Cardiff Blues in the Cardiff Arms Park at 7.30pm.
Despite that memorable and historic Heineken Cup victory against Harlequins from over a fortnight ago at the Sportsground remaining fresh in the memory as Eric Elwood and co touched down in Wales, Connacht won’t kid themselves about the scale of the task facing them tonight.
The Westerners will be boosted by the recording of a ‘W’ in their results list at long last but the reality is that they haven’t won a game in this competition – the meat and drink matches in which they are judged week in, week out – since late September when they defeated Ospreys 26-21.
They’ve lost the last eight Pro 12 clashes since then; and who needs reminding of their last league tie, that calamitous effort away to Aironi, in which they failed to secure even a losing bonus, or play anywhere close to the standard that would be considered the bare minimum for professionals.
A win can give momentum and change the mindset among players, however, and the extended break should see Elwood’s squad refreshed going into the third and final phase of the competition.
They’ve nine league games to turnaround the season, a process that started against Harlequins and continues against the Welsh now.
It may be a new beginning but the same old problems of injuries continues to dog Elwood: This match came too soon for Andrew Browne (Achilles), Eoin Griffin (hamstring), Rodney Ah You (foot) and Frank Murphy (groin) who are still not in contention for selection but could be recovered for next week.
The news is not so good for Johnny O’Connor, whose facial fracture could need many more weeks than anticipated to heal fully.
One positive is the return from injury of Dave McSharry (shoulder) and he has been named at inside centre, replacing Henry Fa’afili, who drops to the bench.
McSharry, who partners Kyle Tonetti at midfield, is the only change to the starting line-up from that triumph against Harlequins. Out-half Niall O’Connor – one of the heroes of that match after a return to form with the boot in particular – renews his half-back pairing with scrum-half Paul O ‘Donohue.
Captain Gavin Duffy, who had an uncharacteristic off-day for the Irish Wolfhounds during the clubs break, is at full-back with Tiernan O’Halloran and Fetu’u Vainikolo on the wings.
The pack that collectively played out of their skins with an unrivalled tackling rate against Quins, remains intact with Brett Wilkinson returning from the Ireland squad to join Ronan Loughney and Adrian Flavin in the front-row. Michael Swift, Mike McCarthy, John Muldoon, Ray Ofisa and George Naoupu provide plenty of experience and oomph.
It’s a frightening pack and if they can replicate the abnormal levels of ferocity and commitment levels they produced against Harlequins, then there’s no reason why Connacht can’t face into the next fortnight against Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh at home with a win under their belts.
Tonight will tell if that Heineken Cup victory was a flash in the pan or whether Connacht have turned the corner.
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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