TOMORROW AFTERNOON, CONNACHT fly to South Africa.
All the way back in September, it’s where a two-game tour left them chasing the pack just three rounds into the URC. After an opening-round defeat to Ulster in Belfast, Andy Friend’s men lost to the Stormers and the Bulls. Things weren’t looking great.
But Connacht were calm. The tough start had been somewhat self-imposed as they couldn’t host games due to the Sportsground’s new artificial surface being laid at the time. They believed there were much better things ahead.
And now they’re in the semi-finals of the competition, set for another clash with the Stormers this Saturday in Cape Town, having deservedly beaten Ulster in their quarter-final in Belfast last weekend.
This is serious stuff for a province who are estimated to have one of the smallest budgets in the entire URC. Their facilities are improving but Connacht are not a glamorous professional rugby club, relatively speaking.
“We don’t zone in on that… we do on occasion when it suits us to zone in on that,” joked Connacht director of rugby Friend on Saturday night.
“We’re balanced, we’ve got a chip on both shoulders!
“I know when I first came here that was the talk, but what impressed me from the minute I met Willie [Ruane, Connacht's CEO] and met the board and then when I came in and met these blokes [the players], they don’t use that as a crutch.
“I think sometimes we’ve used it too much as ‘woe is us’ and when we lose and go down fighting, we’re OK with that. But I think that’s changed. I think they just see it as, ‘Ah well, it is what it is and we’ve got to fight a little bit harder.’
“So there’s a real spirit with the group. I always say to people, you come and look at our facilities, it doesn’t look super flash, it will do in a few years’ time with the new stadium and the centre of excellence, but that shouldn’t change what’s going on in the building.
“When you choose to look at what’s going on in the building, that’s when you see the character of this football team. So it’s not what it looks like, you’ve got a dog track around it and now we’ve got a 4G pitch, but when we get the new centre of excellence and the stand maybe Connacht will keep that character.
“I think they will because you’ve got the blokes, the likes of Jack Carty who come through and they know what it means to play for this province.
“I think the other really positive thing is, it’s important that we keep our homegrown because the province means something to them. You see it out there tonight, the likes of Niall Murray, Dylan Tierney-Martin coming on, Denis Buckley, Jack Carty, Tiernan O’Halloran, there’s a chunk of them who are just homegrown guys and we’ve got a shedload of young blokes coming through.
“There’s a lot of good footballers who didn’t get selected tonight too and that’s the other really pleasing thing.”
The aforementioned Carty has been at the heart of the province for more than 10 years and as the captain now, he’s proud of where they’ve come from.
They’re heading to South Africa to win and reach their first final since the stunning Pro12 title in 2016, but Carty does take some pride in their progress so far.
“When I started in Connacht there was, and I’m not making an exaggeration, this room was probably twice the size of what the gym was,” said Carty on Saturday in the media room at the Kingspan Stadium.
“We had to be split into groups of four but no one ever complained. No one ever gave out, it was what you had and you dealt with it.
“In terms of Friendy’s point, the part around the budgets, you just have to be creative.
“You can’t afford to get it wrong and I think when you look at the likes of Shamus [Hurley-Langton] tonight, he’s an example of someone who there was a lot of time spent looking at him and you get a performance like tonight and what he’s been like over the last couple of weeks.
“We don’t have the luxury and you look at Ulster, they have an All Black tighthead, an Irish hooker, and then they have a British & Irish Lions loosehead, a Springbok captain and internationals all across the backline.
“We don’t have the luxury of that but what we do have is an incredible amount of skilful players and in terms of our detail and how we want to play the game, I think that’s what sets us apart maybe from other teams.
“That’s why there’s such an immense pride from the fellas who’ve come through because there’s an awareness of where we come from, what we have, but we obviously never use it as crutches, as Friendy said.”
