Gerry Thornley: Sportsground redevelopment is key to Connacht's future

When historians come to write about Connacht Rugby in decades, or even longer, from now, they'll assuredly cite the late 2010s as a major crossroads in the province's story.

What happens next will go some way toward determining whether these relative good times will constitute merely a temporary rising from the ashes, or kick-start something truly transformative.

This afternoon Connacht host the Cheetahs at the Sportsground, where there will be an estimated crowd of 6,000. That's worth thinking about for a moment.

Back in 2003, when they were on the verge of extinction, it would have been unthinkable.

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Its positives outweighed its negatives. First and foremost – location, location, location

Until the Pro12 triumph of 2016, the province's first and only senior trophy, and even though this is a huge game in what looks like a four-way fight for the final playoff place in Conference A, such a figure for such a game on a down weekend in the Six Nations, would still have been utterly fanciful.

However, if the truth be told, the Sportsground is not fit for purpose. When the Cheetahs, or anyone else, come calling in two or certainly three years’ time, the Sportsground needs to have facilities to match their own ambitions, and those of its players and supporters.

At least, Connacht have not only a vision, but a plan to redevelop the Sportsground into a modern stadium. Even reaching this point, and an agreement with the Irish Greyhound Board (who hold a 99-year lease on the ground), would not have been possible had the province not recently re-invented itself off the pitch.

Otherwise, a concept such as this would simply have taken too long under the traditional committee system.

Big step

Even getting to this point has taken five years. Five sites were initially explored, which was trimmed down to three, before Connacht settled on the Sportsground.

Its positives outweighed its negatives. First and foremost – location, location, location. It is a walk-up stadium in the centre of the city, an essential part of what Connacht are about and which is hard to replicate, while also being accessible by car from outside Galway. The Sportsground has a history in Connacht Rugby, and the province has plenty of tangible investment there already, such as gyms and headquarters.

But even reaching an agreement on this was a big step. Previously, like the other provinces, Connacht operated with a Professional Game Board, which started in 2011, running alongside the long-standing branch structure.

"It had a good mix of financial, legal and commercial," says Liam Rattigan, the current chairman of the newly devised Connacht board. The first PGB chairman was Jimmy Staunton, of Elverys, and it also included the former Connacht and Irish scrumhalf Conor McGuinness, Damian Devaney, Steve Cunningham and Simon Heaslip.

"Finbarr Crowley stuck his neck out at the time, along with Tom Grace, " says Rattigan, "to say 'look, we need to fund Connacht Rugby.' But it was a bit dysfunctional at the time, and I'm trying not to be critical of anybody, so the PGB was set up outside the branch, and it was a direct line with the IRFU through which we could channel support and funding without getting caught up in the local politics at the time."

The PGB continued for two three-year terms and, funded by the IRFU, essentially ran the professional game in Connacht, with a brief to commercialise the brand, increase the province’s fan base and make improvements to the Sportsground, such as the Clan Terrace.

Through expanding the season ticket holders and fan base, the PGB raised sponsors and supplemented the IRFU’s backing.

Pat Lam's status in the game assuredly helped Connacht's recruitment drive, and the signing of Bundee Aki in 2014 was something of a statement, not least as they fended off interest from Munster and Leinster.

Along with Aly Muldowney, Jake Heenan, AJ MacGinty and others, this was particularly pertinent after losing Sean Cronin, Jamie Hagan and Fionn Carr to Leinster, as well as Ian Keatley to Munster in 2011, and then Robbie Henshaw to Leinster in 2014.

Passion

Signing Aki and co helped to make Connacht competitive, for as Rattigan admits: “We weren’t competitive back in the day. We were hit and miss.”

Connacht also hired Willie Ruane as chief executive in 2014. As a former player, who brought an impressive CV from his career in banking, Ruane also brought a passion for the job. But Connacht's split structures were not ideal, least of all for Ruane, who was also the main go-between with the union, as well as the two halves of Connacht. Meetings every night.

The answer? The PGB needed to disappear.

The IRFU agreed that having a singular authority was better than a split one. Still, it was a risky step.

In streamlining their committee structures, Connacht were entering turkeys-voting-for-Christmas territory, and so they brought in outside advice, namely Paul White of Governance Ireland, to devise a blueprint for a unified governance structure. White's proposals carried more weight for coming from the outside and being professionally enlisted.

The result was one board, rather than a committee, along with a council which oversaw the domestic club game, and a Governance and Nominations Committee (GNC), through which future talent could be recruited, and thus ensure a greater turnover in personnel at governance level.

There are no other sports projects west of the Shannon

“In the old rugby structures, fellas took jobs for 20, 30 or even 40 years,” says Rattigan, “so we put term limits on roles; typically three-year terms, and maybe a maximum of two or three terms. And skill and competency based appointments.”

All of this is the responsibility of Connacht’s GNC. You’d wonder if Connacht have gone too far to the other extreme, in jettisoning talent and having too much turnover, but Rattigan maintains this ensures there is room for succession and vibrancy.

The current board, in existence for a year a half after being elected at the Connacht agm, is responsible for the running of Connacht Rugby, and consists of just seven people, soon to be expanded to nine.

This includes Ruane, Rattigan, and five people who are chairpersons of other sub-committees in the branch: finance (Gerry O’Neill), commercial (John Goode), professional game (Barry Gavin), community/domestic rugby (Rob Lahiff) and operations (Mick Turley).

This mirrors the province’s executive, as in each of those departments Connacht employs a full-time professional.

Connacht have two major challenges in the immediate future. One is to remain a competitive force in the Guinness Pro14 and in Europe, and after two years of underachievement, there has been a noticeable upturn under Andy Friend this season, as well as a harmonious set-up.

The other is to redevelop the Sportsground. Without it, Connacht have hit a ceiling in terms of its fan base and its commercial growth.

Connacht also need to upgrade their outdated training facilities in line with the other provinces, chiefly in order to retain and attract players, with their proposed high-performance centre.

Funding

In December Connacht submitted their planning permission to Galway City Council, who will decide whether to grant planning or seek further clarification on some aspects of the application, or if there are potential objections.

This followed a public consultation process and discussions with the local residents. Encouragingly, when the stadium designers held a public meeting in the Connacht Hotel in October, there was a turnout of 300 people.

The union’s advice was not to build too large a stadium, or assume too large a debt, and the capacity has been set at 12,000 with a €30 million redevelopment cost.

Realistically, this would require at least 50 per cent funding by the Government, and Connacht will submit an application to the Government’s large-scale sports infrastructure fund by the end of April.

“Our intention is to minimalise our borrowing through the commercial and private funding with the opportunities that will come with the stadium,” says Rattigan. This would include naming rights.

There are no other sports projects west of the Shannon. Leinster are “shovel ready” to further redevelop the RDS, and although neither would likely to be in a position to start work until the end of 2019, in making such a huge contribution to Irish rugby, they carry more political clout, albeit Connacht’s need is undoubtedly the greater.

A Connacht delegation did attend a briefing in the Oireachtas with the west of Ireland TDs and Senators, and met with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who subsequently noted that the rugby stadia in the other major cities in Ireland were all more advanced.

Any proposed redevelopment of the Sportsground would have to be phased, so as not to lock out Connacht’s fans. A new all-weather pitch would be the first phase, so that when the Clan Terrace and existing gym are redeveloped in the next phase to build the high-performance centre and a new Clan Terrace, the playing surface would be able to sustain training as well as matches. The third phase would be a reconfigured, extended stand in place of the existing main stand.

Much of this process remains for now, out of their hands, so Connacht are reluctant to declare a timeline. But their dream scenario would be to have all this completed by the end of 2020, or failing that by the start of the 2020-2021 season.

If there is to be “a next level” for Connacht Rugby, this has to happen. The fan base and political goodwill might never be like this again.

“It will help us fund significant expansion of the game,” says Rattigan, “and provide facilities that are fit for purpose and comparable with any other province or indeed English or French clubs.”

“It will also put a fairly permanent stake in the ground for top-class rugby in the west of Ireland, because there’s no going back,” says Rattigan.

It’s now or never.