ANDY FRIEND SAYS the reality of life with Connacht Rugby is working around a smaller budget than the other provinces, but he doesn’t know if Irish international Quinn Roux could have been convinced to remain at the province with an improved contract offer.
Roux is expected to make a switch to France in the coming weeks, bringing an end to his nine-year Irish stay, and Friend confirmed the search has already started for his replacement.
“I think that’s a reality, everyone knows that. We don’t have the budget that some others do,” said Friend.
“At the end of the day there was an offer made and respectfully Quinn’s made a decision too. That’s just life, that’s rugby. He is at a different stage of his career.
“He has given an enormous amount to this province, he leaves with our blessing and respect. We’d love to keep him, of course we would, but at the end of the day people make decisions.
“If we threw more money at him would he stay? I don’t know. I don’t know that answer to that. But I can tell you it was a lengthy process that we went through and the decision was made at the end.”
Connacht are preparing for their third Rainbow Cup game this Friday, and their third meeting with Munster this season. Another inter-pro meeting comes on the heels of a 50-21 drubbing at the hands of Leinster last weekend, a game that saw Leinster dominate the Connacht pack physically.
While Roux has only played five times for Connacht this season the pressure is on to find a high quality replacement for the South African native, and Friend thinks Connacht have shown they are able to attract top talent.
“It depends on who we bring in, doesn’t it. You don’t want to lose your better players. Colby (Fainga’a) was one of our better players and Quinn is an international and one of our better players. It’s not ideal that we do lose them, but that’s rugby.
“What we did when we lost Colby (to Lyon), we brought in Abraham Papali’i and everyone is singing his praises now.
“Our job is to go and find a replacement for Quinn and hopefully in a year’s time everyone is singing his praises.”
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