Club of the year in western outpost

On Rugby: The Rugby Writers of Ireland, in our perceived wisdom, select a Club of the Year at the end of each season. In time-honoured tradition, it is invariably the club which wins the First Division title. We wouldn't exactly be the most radical of associations.

Cork Constitution and Shannon have undoubtedly been a cut above the rest throughout the season and deserve to be in the final, but given the winners of the final on Saturday May 4th will win the AIB League trophy and accompanying prize-money, it can be argued that the club of the year award should go elsewhere. After all, Con and Shannon have already been in three finals, and have accumulated six AIL titles between them. In contrast, many clubs, such as Clontarf and UCD in the top flight, have broken new ground this season in a radically changing club map.

The top three in Division Two also scaled new heights, with the progressive UL Bohemians accompanying the nouveau riche of Belfast Harlequins as both underlined the gains to be had from imaginative mergers. The lack of a strong top-flight club in Belfast had left a gaping hole in Ulster and Irish rugby.

Yet set against this duo's inherent advantages in terms of financial resources, location and facilities, Barnhall's achievement in coming within a try of promotion to the first division just four years after gaining senior status was quite stunning.

Invariably, there had to be losers in the redrawing of the Irish club map, in which tradition counts for little. Clubs with little or no history, but a strong sense of local identity, community spirit and a vibrant feeding system (be it the locale, a feeder school or two or ideally both) are better placed than clubs with a more illustrious history and trophy cabinet, but comparatively speaking no catchment area or natural feeding system. It will mean further blood and tears along the way, and in addition to Young Munster's sad exit from the top flight, Wanderers and Old Wesley will meet in Division Three next season.

There is a flip side, and the developmental and expansionist work Barnhall and other non-traditional clubs are doing on behalf of themselves and the IRFU is incalculable. With that in mind therefore, this column's Club of the Year award - admittedly with a hint of bias - goes to the Connemara All Blacks.

The last rugby outpost on the western seaboard, a sort of wild west frontier for the game, for years Connemara's nearest away fixture has been 60 miles away in Galway. Situated in GAA heartland, they have brought senior rugby to a part of the island where the union wouldn't have considered sending a missionary, much less a development officer, not so long ago.

Throughout the 1990s Connemara were the dominant force in Connacht junior rugby, but repeatedly just missed out in the round robin play-offs for a place in the AIL until dramatically doing so at the end of last season. Even so, there were fears within the club that they might have taken a step too far for their own good, expressed here.

"We smiled when we saw that," says Hugh Griffin, club president. "We knew we'd rise to the occasion. The better the opposition, the better we play." That much was borne out by their surprise semi-final win away to the Division Three champions Greystones on Saturday. This guaranteed the All Blacks a divisional final against Trinity three weeks' hence, easily the biggest game in the club's short history. "Without a doubt, it's a fairytale," admits a former player and one of the club's driving forces, Dave Griffin.

AT the start of the season it was cast seemingly in stone that all three divisional finals would be played on Saturday May 4th in Lansdowne Road in an imaginative triple-header. However, the IRFU are now trying to move the Division Three decider to the Friday night, either in Donnybrook or Lansdowne Road, much to the chagrin of Connemara and indeed Trinity.

"We are flying three of our players home from America that weekend for a Saturday final, but they wouldn't be able to make a Friday evening final," said Hugh Griffin. "Some of our members have been waiting 20 years for the chance to go to Lansdowne Road. It's been a dream. It's a bank holiday weekend so Sunday would be fine or even 6.0 on the Saturday, after the other two finals."

The squad is comprised entirely of Connemara men, "born and bred and reared within 10 miles of Clifden," says Hugh Griffin, "with the exception of Fergal Wood, Keith Wood's cousin, who is from Clare but lives and works in Clifden. Our underage numbers have gone up from 40 to 143 in three years and we even fielded an under-20 team for the first time this season."

With fishermen, hotel managers, electricians and plumbers in their ranks, not alone would Connemara struggle to field a team 200 miles away on a Friday, but they'd abandon plans to provide three coaches for their underage players and supporters. Thus, far from doubling the 300 or so supporters they brought to Wicklow, few if any would be able to make the near 200-mile, four-hour trip on a Friday. In the circumstances, a Saturday kick-off at 6.0 as the third leg of a triple-header wouldn't seem too much to ask.

Not that this is Connemara's only beef right now. In my naivety, I had presumed that senior status was automatically conferred on clubs promoted from the junior ranks to Division Three of the AIL. You'd have thought that the Connacht Branch, mindful that UCG, Sligo and Westport have slipped through the AIL trapdoor to the junior ranks, would be only too eager to swell their senior numbers.

Alas, some of the old closed-shop mentality still seems to exist and incredibly the Connacht Branch have yet to grant Connemara senior status. Apparently it's to do with rewriting the branch's constitution, or a requisite year's transition from junior to senior status, or some such tosh.

It comes as no surprise to learn that UCG, Westport, Ballina and Creggs are still deemed to be senior clubs, and hence receive more tickets for international match days than Connemara.

Well, some things never change after all.