Connacht dream close to reality

Tiernan O’Halloran and his Connacht team-mates have stopped dreaming, because winning the Guinness PRO12 final is a realistic objective.
Connacht dream close to reality

On Saturday evening, they will clash with Leinster at Murrayfield, in the final game of an incredible season that has transformed ambitions into achievements for Pat Lam’s side.

“Back in November or December, when we were sitting near the top of the table, we were all still thinking ‘imagine how incredible it would be to finish in the top four’,” full-back O’Halloran says.

“Having finished in seventh place (last season), our best-ever finish, you kind of do let yourself dream, at times, and think ‘it would be incredible, it would be unbelievable’. Our goal, at the start of the year, was to get Champions Cup rugby. We weren’t going to set ourselves an unrealistic target, at the time, of saying ‘let’s go and win the league’, when we’d never finished above seventh.

“Obviously, we had to sit down a couple of times, during the year, and reset our goals. We sat down about two or three months ago, now, and we had a realistic chat, and everyone wrote down their individual goals. We gradually put them all together and said ‘this league is here for us, there’s no reason why we can’t win it’.

“It was just that self-confidence in the whole squad. We all trust each other and we know what we’re capable of, so that’s led to that confidence. At that stage, you’re not really dreaming any more of what could be. You have to have a firm belief, at that stage, that ‘yeah, we can go on and win this competition’.”

Beating Leinster 7-6, at the Sportsground, on Easter Saturday, was a massive stepping stone. Yet O’Halloran will not read any more into that stirring victory, in Galway, than he would into Connacht’s 13-0 defeat, in the reverse fixture, at the RDS on New Year’s Day.

“It’s finals rugby, it’s different,” he said. “It always gives you confidence, beating a team earlier on in the year, but, also, we probably had our worst performance of the year up in the RDS, as well against Leinster. I don’t think it’s a case where you look back two or three months at a game and think ‘oh, we beat them back then’. We were getting pummelled on our line for the last 10 minutes of that (home) game, so it wasn’t as if it was an easy win or anything. Of course, both teams were missing a couple of players that day, so, hopefully, this week it’s looking like both teams will be very close to full strength, so it’s going to make for a great game and, again, it’s not really coming in with any over-confidence of who beat who back earlier in the season. It’s finals rugby, so it’s something different we have to look forward to.”

As the son of former Offaly All-Ireland medal-winning footballer, Aidan, the 25-year-old full-back knows all about the pull of Gaelic games.

He has also witnessed Connacht Rugby’s progress, winning hearts and minds across the province, but is conscious of what a victory tomorrow, in a first final, would do for the sport in the west.

“It’s hard to put into words what it would do for this province, because it’s been such an incredible rise this season. You walk through town any day of the week and you’ll see kids in Connacht in jerseys all over the place. Five years ago, you might see one every three or four weeks; it would be mainly Gaelic football jerseys. So, that’s the way it’s gone. It’s grown in the province, as a whole. It’ll, hopefully, encourage younger guys coming up in school and in Gaeltacht areas, especially, to pick up a rugby ball, as well as a sliotar.

“That’ll just help to grow the province. The future of Connacht rugby is going to get better, if success breeds success. If we can win this weekend, it can grow.”

And having been in the senior squad for the past three season, and, prior to that, in the underage ranks and academy, O’Halloran knows that victory would mean an awful lot to those homegrown players, and to veteran captain, John Muldoon, in particular.

“I’ve experienced some pretty low times here; playing in front of just over 1,000 people with a couple of steps out there, before the Clan Terrace was built. It’s been incredible to see the way it’s grown; not just on the pitch, but off it, as well.

“It gives you a good feeling inside. It’s very special.It’s hard to put into words, but it’s been an incredible journey, and this weekend is all about those two hours of a game and getting that win. It’d be special, for someone like John Muldoon. It’s something we’d all like to win for him, because he deserves it.

“What he has gone through here (in 13 seasons), how long he has been here, he epitomises what Connacht is. It would be just brilliant to get that win for Mul’ and get that trophy. He has never won a trophy at Connacht. It would be brilliant for him,” O’Halloran says.

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