Only the strongest will survive

RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYsays the extra demands placed on squads by an expanded Magners League fixture list means the likes of Connacht face an uphill struggle

WELCOME TO another season then, or as the Magners League perhaps ought to put it, ‘Benvenuto’. As the League enters its tenth year, expansion is the theme, the advent of two new Italian sides broadening the league’s Celtic remit. Cue more games (42 of them to be exact), more matches on free-to-air television, more travel, more expenses and more demands. More than ever before, it would seem, only the strongest will survive.

Over the horizon lurks the World Cup in just over a year’s time, but it seems to loom more visibly for Ireland than its rivals. As the last vestiges of a golden generation seek to maximise their remaining chances of leaving an indelible mark from their careers, one has the distinct impression that Ireland’s front-liners may have less provincial demands placed on them.

Whatever about the World Cup and international rugby, the glories of the Heineken Cup have always held far more allure for Irish rugby players, coaches and supporters alike, and while the same is true to some extent in Wales, the word from there is the Welsh international management will be making their players more readily available.

Whether that proves the case or not, there were signs last season that there has been a shifting of the sands anyway. The bookies, as they did a year ago, have established an elite quartet whom they place as firm favourites to reach the top four.

Glasgow elbowed their way into that select group, but unlike a year ago, it is the two powerful Welsh regions, the Ospreys and the Cardiff Blues, rather than Leinster and Munster, who are hogging the silverware, courtesy of their respective Magners League and Amlin Challenge Cup successes.

The Welsh, as is their wont, are not innately modest when it comes to their exploits on rugby fields, and the Cardiff coach Dai Young was quite chipper on their behalf earlier in the week. “I think the Welsh challenge will be a strong one. If you look around then all of us have improved our squads on last year. So I think we will be major challengers again.”

Cardiff have never won the league but Young makes no bones about boldly targeting outright victory in this season’s Grand Final.

“The Magners League has always been very important to us at the Blues, but it will be a major focus for us this year. In the past it has been more of a qualification tool than something we have set out to win . . . But we are determined to be in a position to get into the play-offs come the end of the season. It is vital that we do enough to be in that top four.”

Thus far the competition has been dominated by Ireland and Wales, with five and four wins respectively, but Young was equally forthright in declaring that the years when Irish sides enjoyed a psychological advantage over the Welsh regions is over.

“Up until last season, going to Ulster was always a formidable task and something that we got little joy out of, but we have won there the last two seasons. We have also won at Munster a few times and we have always pushed Leinster close. So I think that pedestal we have placed them on in the last couple of years probably isn’t there now. We know there will be no easy games and we know we have to be at our best. But we have a confidence about us now when we go over to Ireland that we didn’t used to have.”

Cardiff and the Ospreys also have more depth, much of it indigenous young talent, than before. With four more games, thus ensuring a minimum of 28 competitive games for all the league sides plus knock-out matches, the key will be the respective strength in depth of the squads as international call-ups, Europe and injuries hit – as they assuredly will do. Some will be hit harder than others, but some are also much better prepared for such an eventuality.

Next season, the hits will be harder again, with the first seven or eight rounds of the league set to clash with the World Cup. The Ospreys appear to be building towards next season as well as this one, judging by their squad. Check their website and they have 48 players listed. When Tommy Bowe said the competition for places on the wings at the Liberty Stadium was “frightening”, he wasn’t overstating the case.

Down at the other end of the table, Connacht are being asked to compete in an expanded league with the same minimalist squad of 30. “That’s the obstacle we’re facing,” admits Eric Elwood. “We’ve got almost 25 per cent extra games with the same size squad of 30 players. This is one of the obstacles I’m trying to fight all the time; we’ve got to be able to increase our squad.”

Elwood was talking with his Ospreys counterpart Sean Holley at the Magners League launch earlier in the week and a sympathetic Holley asked him how he can be more competitive with the same squad size in an expanded league.

“Like Sean is talking about having ten front-row players. We don’t have ten front-row players. In fact, we’re an injury away from having a crisis at prop,” he reveals in reference to the new ruling permitting 23-man match day squads including an additional prop on the bench in line with other competitions.

Jamie Hagan is their first-choice prop with Rob Sweeney, from St Mary’s, his back-up while their two loose-heads are Ronan Loughney and Brett Wilkinson. But with Robbie Morris’s career in doubt due to a fractured back and Academy prop Denis Buckley next in line, forwards coach Dan McFarland is trawling the globe for an overseas prop, but then again who isn’t? On Thursday they signed a 22-year-old Australian prop on trial by the name of Barry Fa’amusaili.

They’ve also lost George Naupu to Japanese rugby and, for the first five or six weeks, John Muldoon – probably their two most influential players last season. Ezra Taylor, a former Queensland Reds number eight, is, says Elwood, a completely different player to the ball-carrying Naupu. “Ezra has done well and is a big athletic player. We’re hoping to get the ball into his hands and he’s a good guy in defence and hopefully he can make those big impact hits for us as well.”

Elwood has also brought in Australian Brian Melrose as backs coach, while Tom Forshaw, a recent competitor on Mr Ironman, is their first ever defence coach, while Conor McPhillips has been brought in as a full-time video analyst to ease the load on forwards coach Dan McFarland.

“So I’m taking a bit of a back step on the coaching side of things,” admits Elwood, “just trying to do a lot of organization and planning, and obviously give the lads the freedom to do the coaching on the pitch.” It’s been a bit of an eye-opener and tough going. “Obviously there’s a lot to it. You’re the go-to man, everybody runs everything through you, be it the medics, the coaches, be it the players, the management and the CEO, and I have to go to certain meetings. But the main thing is the planning of the sessions, to make sure the coaches are happy and getting the sufficient amount of time they’re looking for. So it’s been good and it’s been challenging . . .”

There has, apparently, been a discernible level of goodwill toward a Connacht icon since he’s assumed the role, but he stresses: “Just because you’ve got a Galway native coaching the Connacht team doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to win games, nor does it necessarily mean we’re going to get people in the gate. Part of our brief, to be fair to the players, is that we do our bit off the pitch to encourage people to come in and then our job is to entice them with the way we’re playing and with results. We’re here to win matches.”

Elwood stresses the need for Connacht to be competitive. “That might sound very simplistic, but we need to get the support to assemble a squad that is competitive week-in and week-out. We will be competitive at home but we need to be able to set up our team away from home so that it can also be competitive.”

With that in mind, he talks enthusiastically about the improved fund-raising off the pitch, which is involving the ex-pat communities in London and the USA, the improved facilities (gym, all-weather pitch etc), proposals to build a new stand, the influence of Forshaw as defence coach (they’ve conceded 54 and 53 tries in the last two seasons) and the desire to play an enterprising brand of rugby in also improving their try tally (just 20 in each of the last two 18-game campaigns).

“If you look at the new laws, the game is very much an unstructured type game now. There is more opportunity to counterattack so we want to encourage guys to play. There’s an element of structure there but there’s flexibility to play without being reckless.

“We’re talking people changing their perception of us so we have to change, if we stay on the same patch we’ll still be last but surely it’s worth having a go, doing something different to try and get off that patch, and then you might get your rewards. I’m not going to set unrealistic goals, like top four. We haven’t won an away game in the last two seasons, but if we can get competitive and consistent in our performances, then we can talk about winning away matches.”

So, if not Connacht are not to emerge from the pack and emulate Glasgow or the Dragons in rubbing shoulders with the big four, then who? Sadly, not the Warriors themselves most likely. Ravaged by injuries after several of their players also backboned the much -improved Scottish international campaign which culminated in last June’s impressive 2-0 series win in Argentina, alas Glasgow look hopelessly ill-equipped to mount any kind of sustained challenge this side of the November internationals at leas. A dark horse could be the Dragons again, or perhaps more plausibly Ulster. They have made three eye-catching signings from South Africa, and with their regular presence throughout the season, and probably less international demands on their squad than the supposed big four, they look well primed to emerge from three seasons of struggling near the basement.

Next Saturday the new Italian Super franchise that is Aironi Rugby receives the red -carpet treatment at Musgrave Park while that same evening Benetton Treviso host the Scarlets. There must be fears within the Magners League hierarchy that the Italians will take a few hidings, and with that take the brickbats. But the two have recruited heavily and may well hang tough through the winter months more than is widely anticipated.

Either way, if nothing else, there presence will be interesting.