Connacht fully focused as winning mentality takes hold

Week eight of the season and Connacht arrive at Thomond Park in the lofty heights of first place. Early days. They are not suffering from vertigo just yet, never mind swinging from the chandeliers.

Both Pat Lam and captain John Muldoon realise the table has been influenced by the World Cup. Mindful of just missing out on the top six last season and automatic qualification, perhaps the most relevant statistic is that they are 10 points clear of seventh-placed Edinburgh.

Nevertheless, their run of five successive league wins (and seven in both competitions) underlines a new-found level of consistency in both performances and results. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised. To put the recent form of Leinster and Ulster into perspective under newly installed head coaches, this is Lam’s third season at the helm, which makes him the longest-serving head coach at any of the provinces.

“Time is crucial because there are relationships,” says Lam. “Obviously an example is my relationship with John. We had to get to understand John more, and the other players, and then the more they get to understand me.

“You are dealing with people and we are talking about a physical game. Everyone is different, you have got individuals that are all completely different. When you are trying to get everyone on the same page, that’s why we love rugby. That’s why Connacht is never about the individual, it’s about what the individual can do for the team.

“In rugby there is the game, but there is the culture and the leadership. The faster you can build that the better. I’ve been very fortunate to be playing and coaching successful teams, but I’ve also been very fortunate to be around successful teams. Those are the three things: you get you leadership, culture and game right and you can go from there. That can be one, two or three years, but every day is a learning process for that.”

Infectious

Lam’s ambition, like his work ethic, is infectious and in the early stages of his third season, he believes they are on track.

“Definitely. I think a lot of work has gone into it by so many people. But I think the most important thing is that the rugby team is aligned with the organisation. That’s the key thing.

“That was part of the reason I came here, was to make sure as a whole organisation that we understand who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. That makes everything. The toughest part, my first year, was not having a CEO. For a long time we had no CEO. To have Willie Ruane, a local boy, who played for Connacht, driving the organisation, and we’ve got a local guy [Muldoon] that’s played the most games in Pro12 history, who’s from here, driving the team.

“It’s exciting times for Connacht because for young guys coming in, whether they’re from here or from outside, they get inspired by that. So it’s all tracking nicely, but there is a long way to go still.”

Suit all parties

Indeed. At some point this season – and perhaps sooner rather than later would suit all parties – almost certainly the departure of Robbie Henshaw to Leinster will be confirmed. It is undoubtedly a blow. Henhsaw is a son of a Connacht player, and a product of their schools game and underage structure.

It’s doubtful he would have progressed quite so rapidly at one of the other provinces given the amount of game time Eric Elwood was quick to grant Henshaw from his first year out of school.

Henshaw is a hero to the Connacht supporters. It’s a desperate shame in many ways. But there was some good news this week in Kieran Marmion signing a new two-year deal with the province.

“I obviously thought long and hard about it, but I think where we’re going at the moment we’re in a good place and I believe that we can get better as well,” said Marmion. “I’m enjoying Galway and enjoying being around here. There’s a good group of lads and I’m very happy with where I am.”

This is Marmion’s fifth season at Connacht. He arrived at the age of 20, an English-born, Welsh-reared son of an Irish father, Mick, from Loughrea, where much of Marmion’s extended family still live.

His dad, who passed away two years ago, was the formative influence on his career. He played for Saracens, while Marmion’s brother plays for Nelson in New Zealand. His mum, Sandra (nee Goldsmith), who hails from Romford in Essex and still lives in England, is currently in New Zealand.

Marmion was six when the family moved to Brecon in Wales, a rugby hotbed, where he immediately began playing with the local rugby club, before going to school in England at 16 for a couple of years at Kirkham Grammar School, where both his mum and dad taught.

After playing for the Exiles U-18s at 16 against Connacht at the Sportsground, and then for the Irish U-20s, Nigel Carolan invited him into the Connacht academy while he was studying at University of Wales Institute Cardiff.

At the start of his second season in the academy, 2012-13, injuries to Frank Murphy, Paul O’Donohoe and Dave Moore meant a debut against Cardiff in the first league game of the season (when Henshaw also made his debut off the bench), which in turn led to Marmion being an ever-present that season. “Connacht gave me the opportunity to start my career and they’ve stuck by me since then, so I owe them a bit for that.”

There are also blood ties to Connacht, and the extended family were invaluable in helping Marmion settle in initially. His cousin Edel comes to all the home games.

Standard demanded

All in all, it’s been a good move for his career. Marmion’s Irish debut came on the summer tour to Argentina in 2014 when he came off the bench in both Tests, and there have been two more appearances as a replacement against Georgia in November last season and away to Wales in August. Still, he admits his Test career has so far come up short, pending further improving all his basics to the standard demanded by Joe Schmidt.

Overall though, Marmion has seen, and been part of, tangible progress on and off the pitch. “When I was first here under Eric Elwood we were always improving, and then Pat came in and the squad has really pushed on. Nowadays we are much more competitive against the bigger sides in the Pro12 than when I was first playing here.

“We haven’t played all the top teams in the league yet,” admits Marmion, “but for example that Ospreys away game [when Connacht won 21-16 on World Cup semi-final weekend] – we probably would have lost that sort of game. The whole squad has a good, winning mentality.”

On Tuesday, Lam spoke of the management reviewing themselves and the players after every training session, as well as matches, and constantly seeking to improve. It sounds intense, but everyone is buying into it. And results help.

“The environment here has been built around winning games,” says Marmion, and if this leads to something special this season, then he’d rather be part of that than anywhere else.

“That’s a huge factor in why I decided to stay as well, because I genuinely believe we can do something special, and I’d like to do that with Connacht.

“It wouldn’t be the same with someone else. I know where we’ve come from here, and what we’ve built to get where we are, and it would be great to win a competition or qualify for the European Cup.

“And I believe we can and get into Europe on our own, and go further.”