west awake!!

spanner

looks like connaught are fighting to get back there exiles from england, the likes of duffy, browne, o connor etc but the rfu arent helping. so they are planning demostrations during the 6nations.
i think any decent rugby supporters admire connaught for coming from the brink of extinction to a fighting force. they have done really well. saw the ospreys game, real forward passion (leinsiter could learn alot) i belive the rfu sould play for these players to come home and before people start saying that connaught rugby doesnt make any money they must look at munster and leinsiter as sucess stories, especially lenister, when they started off they had very low attendances but as sucess came to both team attendances grew to amazing levels, just imagine packing out lawnsdowne road for a leinsiter match, unthinkable 10 years ago.

so finally to say sucessful connaught rugby will breed the money and make irish rugby stronger

uberwolf

Todays Irish times has an article on the same topic. More convincing than Connaughts desire to bring those players back is that the same players have apparently said they would like to move back!!! Which would be great..



John O'Sullivan writes...




It appears Connacht supporters are ready to take to the streets again over what they perceive to be an attempt by the IRFU to downgrade the professional game in the province.

Their ire is directed at what they perceive to be the IRFU's singularly unenthusiastic reaction to their plan to repatriate English-based players like Johnny O'Connor, Gavin Duffy, Colm Rigney and Damian Browne, and others such as Llanelli captain and Irish flanker Simon Easterby.

The Connacht Rugby Supporters Club Dublin (CRSCD) have threatened to stage demonstrations to highlight what they see as the deliberate under-funding of the professional game in the West. CRSCD chairman Aubrey Bourke said in a statement released following a meeting of the supporters club in Dublin there is a lot of anger among Connacht fans over this issue.

"We felt that we had passed the time of mass demonstrations and marches to the point where we could focus upon developments on the playing pitch. Regretfully it now appears that we may have to revisit this method of public agitation again.

"What's wrong with bringing these players home? In essence this policy of preventing Connacht to build up its squad flies in the face of the IRFU's stated policy of having Irish players based in Ireland. Denying Connacht the permission to bring the players home from England even if Connacht raises the funds itself smacks of a hidden agenda.

"The union's surprise at learning of the players' interest in returning to Ireland and playing for Connacht suggests that the union may be out of touch with some of its international players."

Bourke feels Connacht's European ambitions are not being facilitated. "Two seasons ago the Connacht team was threatened with extinction. Since gaining a reprieve the side has exceeded all expectations, building steadily and developing a reputation as a fearless side, particularly in European competition.

"The plan to bring home Irish-qualified players, consistent with IRFU policy, would have a hugely beneficial impact on the game not only in the province in terms of profile but also in maximising the longevity of players' careers.

"Given the IRFU's track record with Connacht, supporters have every right to be concerned. It would appear that this is part of an IRFU policy of deliberately under-funding Connacht and blocking any attempts to boost the squad. This kind of policy can only have one goal - to allow Connacht to wither on the vine."

This decision, coupled with the IRFU vagueness about Connacht's future funding beyond 2006, has set off alarm bells with players and supporters. "Could it be the IRFU are learning from the Scottish example with Borders? Just under-fund Connacht for a year or two, let their best players go abroad, block their return and with any luck they will sink without a trace. It's obvious the IRFU have learned from January 2003 and the new unstated back-door policy is to squeeze the life out of Connacht."

The IRFU confirmed the Connacht Branch were asked to put forward a business plan to cover amongst other things the repatriation of players. The union made their request to Connacht delegates at a meeting yesterday afternoon and have requested a full briefing on the proposals and their implementation.



© The Irish Times

Nukem

I honestly think the IRFU should take a good long look at Irish Rugby and realise that Connaught could be a power to reckon with. They are better than most scottish and welch teams not to mention not bad at beating the French.

They have a chance to make them a real power. Give them money and support for one year and i bet they do something with it.
I rate Bradley and think he is doing wonders for what he has.

Nukem

daveirl

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[Jackass]

It's a shame that connacht got left behind when Irish rugby turned professional, the blame for that must lie with the IRFU, because of the loss of players to England mentioned above, but there is no reason why they couldn't be as competetive as the other provinces both domestically and in Europe. I rate bradley as a good coach also, and think that it's time to invest in conacht rugby, and tbh are on a par imo of the likes of Ulster, and its true that success brads support....if connacht had the success of other provinces they would have the supporters showing up for games in droves.
It's typical of Irish sporting organisations though....can never match the results of the teams on the pitch off it.....IRFU, FAI :rolleyes: they need to get there act together and grab this oppertunity we have at the moment with players and backroom staff to cement Irish rugbys future success and become a world power perminantly!

MarVeL

From what I've been reading it would appear that the money for the players is there but that the IRFU is refusing permission to use it claiming that the money should be spent on operational costs. Of course this money was raised from sponsors and might not (probably should not) be available for other uses, especially if that was the declared intent of the fund raising.

Trojan

daveirl wrote:

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Yep, that's it. To quote a former Connacht Branch General Secretary I was talking to after the debacle which was Leinster-Connacht at Donnybrook a couple of months back, the simple problem is "bums on seats".

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Apathy mightn't be 100% correct, because the rugby fans are not apathetic. The general population is a different issue.

Just to answer the venue point - no, I don't think that's a real problem, the sportsground isn't bad.

As I see it, the real problem of low attendences is a combination of several factors, some of which cause a vicious circle of reaction and counter reaction

* a much lower general population than the other provinces

* the tradional popularity of GAA sports - hurling and football in Galway, football in the other counties versus

* a traditionally much smaller fanbase for what is seen in much of the area (more outlying regions) as a foreign sport

These latter points can addressed particularly well in schools where the IRFU was doing excellent promotional work for 5-8 years from ~1994 or so. Unfortunately, they appear to have stopped working at this, and the GAA seem to have become aware of the threat, and worked at grass-roots level to stop it.

daveirl wrote:

Of course Connacht probably get more per head of population than Leinster and Munster a lot of the time but unfortunately that doesn't mean it makes sense economically.

That could well be true. I'd love to get some hard figures to compare, instead of working off our conjecture (and perhaps I should attend some supporters meetings).

All this said, I think we have good reason to be positive about the future