Labour of love charts the ups and downs of Connacht

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

AS Christmas approaches, an ocean of sports books has inevitably swept onto the shelves like a tidal wave. One though that is sure to do extremely well is that of ex-Connacht Rugby manager John Fallon, who has produced an enthralling and absorbing account chartering the fortunes of the current PRO12 champions over the past 14 years or so.

No doubt, Fallon, a former journalist with the Connacht Tribune, offers a unique perspective in his book entitled ‘The Team That Refused To Die’, having spent two turbulent years at the helm of Connacht Rugby and another 32 years reporting on the team for print, broadcast and online media.

“I suppose, it is a privileged position to be in. I started out as an observer of this, to being inside the tent – and inside the tent when it went on fire – to rebuilding it before going back to being an observer again,” begins the Salthill man, who took up the post of Connacht manager in 2002.

Upon his departure in ‘04, he set up his hugely successful freelance company Media West and, while he has endeavoured to be objective in his reporting on Connacht ever since, he confesses that objectivity went out the window when Connacht reached for the stars and pocketed them in their famous win over Leinster in the PRO12 final in Murrayfield last May.

“I have to admit I lost it in Murrayfield. Simon Lewis was in front of me – he is the rugby correspondent for the Irish Examiner and he is originally from Northampton – and when the first try went in, I hit him a thump to say we are on our way,” he laughs.

“When Connacht ran in the second one, he definitely got it but by the end he still hugged me. He said to ‘hell with it’. It was just the day of all days.” That it was.

You couldn’t blame Fallon for losing the run of himself, particularly given the emotional investment he had made in Connacht over a decade previous – when he and others laid it all on the line to save the province from extinction. In Murrayfield, that investment reaped its return, with interest.

Yet, as he details in his remarkable publication, which is punctuated beautifully by a vast collection of pictures from INPHO Photography, such an achievement was hard to envisage when Connacht travelled to face Munster in the Celtic League quarter-final in Cork in November ‘02.

It is at this point Fallon chooses to begin his book, just as the news breaks that the IRFU are considering disbanding Connacht’s flagship team. “We travelled to Cork and we thought it would be the last match that Connacht would ever play, although there was meant to be a Challenge Cup match or two after that. However, the word was out.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.