The miracles can't go on forever

European Challenge/Cup Connacht v Grenoble: In retrospect, the protests, the declamations and the famous march on the citadel…

European Challenge/Cup Connacht v Grenoble: In retrospect, the protests, the declamations and the famous march on the citadel that followed the threat to the Connacht rugby team might have been a healthy thing. The air was cleared. Everyone knew where they stood and for those who cared for Connacht rugby, that place was the very edge of the western seaboard.

If the IRFU were perhaps surprised by the warm outrage prompted by the release of plans to excise the western province from their plans, the crisis meant Connacht followers began to accept that in the professional era, they were borderline insolvent.

Nothing exercises the Connacht sense of pique like the implication that motions on their future might come to pass in Dublin. The threat to effectively sunder and isolate Connacht, with its historical and political connotations, evoked a rich and ultimately liberating few weeks of popular protest among the rugby community.

Two years later the Connacht team are preparing for a game that could usher them into their second successive European Challenge Cup semi-final, a highly laudable achievement that keeps the province in the mind's eye. The visit of Grenoble to the Sportsground today, a week after a characteristically rousing and obdurate performance by Connacht in the French border town, promises yet another significant victory at that wind-blown old sports theatre.

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It may have been that the sheer bleakness of their circumstances allied to the democratic vision and belief introduced by coach Michael Bradley but for two seasons the Connacht players have managed to perform not just like model professionals but like men who care about the place they represent.

The visit by the chief executive Philip Browne with IRFU representatives in Galway last autumn did help to thaw the hostile and distrustful regard in which many Connacht rugby people held the parent body. The message delivered that night was echoed in the other provinces also: the IRFU was obliged to control the spiralling cost of professionalism. The communication led to at least the broad mutual understanding that if Connacht were not to become the victims, they had to become part of the solution.

"At that time I had grave, grave worries about our future but I honestly feel we are in a healthier situation now," said Connacht branch treasurer Eamonn Feeley this week.

"Part of that is due to what I see standing at the gates week after week. And I think we manage our budget very effectively, we are very prudent in terms of our cost control and I believe the IRFU recognises that. But it is an ongoing process and it is not easy."

At the beginning of this season Michael Bradley challenged the local rugby public, rationalising that if they so badly wanted elite rugby in the west, they had to prove it by showing up at games. The lessons of the past two years suggested a potentially viable support network waiting to be fully hooked.

Right now, there is a hardcore of maybe 1,500 home fans. In the 3-0 defeat to Munster over Christmas in appalling weather, some 4,000 people showed upon College Road. When Connacht hosted Gwent Dragons one lunchtime Sunday, only 700 were enticed. When Jonny Wilkinson made his comeback in the Sportsground with Newcastle last August, business was brisk.

Connacht's customers cherry-pick. The onus is on the branch to develop a more steadfast fan base. It is the IRFU's prerogative - and duty - to demand that. The Connacht branch is working on a business plan to that end, due to be presented to the IRFU shortly. They accept that the standard gate should average at least 2,000.

The intercession of the Government through the Minister of Sport, John O'Donoghue, during the critical machinations two years ago probably meant that Connacht and the IRFU were stuck with one another, for better or worse. Since that period, the team have done everything possible to present a robust and attractive and worthwhile entity on the verge of going places. Yet their survival was based around the notion that it should comprise a development squad.

"Two years ago we were so desperate that we would have grabbed any kind of olive branch," says Feeley.

But is that label still relevant? The IRFU has since set up four provincial academies and marquee players like Bernard Jackman and John O'Sullivan are staying put instead of moving east or south to the big guns. The development tag, along with the lack of an unequivocal statement about Connacht's unassailable place within the union must surely be a deterrent to potential investors. If Connacht dreams of, as one branch member put it, "turning Galway into a Limerick", it will require convincing commercial and private interests that Connacht rugby is a young, hungry and long-term proposition.

"I think the development idea died a death because the other provinces simply didn't buy into it," says Billy Glynn, Connacht's representative on the IRFU committee. "And I don't think people who know anything about Connacht rugby see us as that."

But isn't it true that term still hangs in the air along with doubts over the IRFU's commitment to Connacht? Philip Browne points to the published Strategic Review to reject that.

"The key thing that is often lost in the emotion is that Connacht rugby has always been an integral part of the Irish game and always will be. Read the review. It is stated there that we want to maintain the present structures as long as we can afford to. And our financial situation is still on a knife-edge. That hasn't changed. The IRFU cannot just keep handing out money to fund its professional teams and that applies to all four provinces. Connacht are performing very well within the limited budget they are working under. But it is up to Connacht - as it is to the other three - to attract and build on their commercial potential."

Winning the Challenge Cup, albeit a very tall order, would provide immediate cachet. Victory in the competition would also mean that Connacht vault into the more lucrative realms of the Heineken European Cup. They could also qualify through the Celtic League - if they finish higher than the third-placed Scottish team and the fourth-placed Welsh team, they would play an Italian team away for the 24th place in the elite competition. The fine details have yet to be agreed between the Celtic nations but that is the likely scenario.

"The Heineken Cup is the Holy Grail for us," says Feeley. "Obviously it would mean an initial added expense for the IRFU but in terms of attracting people, it becomes a much easier sell. Galway is a young city and in a way that makes building up a core group harder. It is a university city as well and a lot of people leave at weekends so even though it seems like a bustling city, it can be hard for all sports teams to draw crowds."

Gerry Kelly, Connacht chief executive, feels that at least the province is moving in the right way with sponsorship "improving by a multiple of five or six - from an admittedly very low base."

It is easy to see why the European Cup looks like such a juicy sell. Philip Browne agrees that European Cup participation would make for a more attractive season schedule but cautioned that "the proof will be in the eating. Covering the costs in terms of operating the team would not be an easy thing."

In the meantime, Connacht rugby has begun the painstaking process of reaching out to the hinterland. Trevor Richardson, a young number eight from Leitrim, and Michael Diffley, a prop from Clooneen Bane in Roscommon, have managed to gain a place on Connacht's academy but a movement to draw the other counties into the bosom is still young. Former winger Nigel Carolan worked as a regional development officer before heading up the academy.

"The way it is now is that you could find your next potential Irish player under a rock. All our academy guys are good athletes and bloody big guys so it is a matter of workingon that raw athleticism. It takes time but we are seeing definite signs that people are taking to the game."

The figures are encouraging. Secondary school affiliation has gone up from 25 to 44 in two years. Tag rugby has been a phenomenal success, with over 100 schools involved. But all these sapling growths do not do much to serve the burning national need to generate extra revenue.

When Eddie O'Sullivan named his extended Six Nations national squad during the week, Jackman was once again the only Connacht man called up. That was not unexpected. As Browne points out, Connacht represent just under 10 per cent of the Irish rugby-playing population. But if the squad demonstrates the vast depth of resources the other three Irish provinces call upon, it may also, in a strange way, suit Connacht's purposes. There are no distractions beyond the team's performance and win/loss record.

Bradley's assured handling of what was a potentially ruinous inheritance bodes well for a glittering coaching future but the Cork man has never given the impression that he saw Connacht as a means of putting himself in the shop window.

There is a general acknowledgement that the presence of Bradley - along with that of the revered outhalf Eric Elwood - has been key to the great conviction and calm and self-knowledge that marks Connacht's play. That is not to undermine the input of the other personnel because Connacht have won admirers for behaving like the apotheosis of a united team uninterested in personal stardom. But there is definitely the sense that this sustained period of impressive results is to a degree reliant on commitment of heroic proportions. Unlike their sister provinces, they cannot afford the luxury of a slip-up.

Perhaps that is why a man like Dean Richards, the indomitable lionheart of Jack Rowell's great English teams, will bring his Grenoble team to the Sportsground today in glum mood. No matter the game, Connacht always play with the controlled ferocity of men who play out of their skins, whether they might be saved or not.