RUGBY: HEINEKEN CUP POOL SIXConnacht have waited long enough for a place at the top table.  GERRY THORNLEY finds them set to make the most of it

IF CONNACHT feel any sense of due toward Leinster for their backdoor route towards their long-awaited debut in the Heineken Cup this season, they are entitled to quickly park it. Leinster and the other Irish provinces, under the IRFU umbrella, have long since owed Connacht one after decades of institutionalised bullying and maltreatment.

Now though, after the Sword of Damacles hung over Connacht for almost a decade, under the more enlightened leadership of Tom Grace and others, the IRFU have removed the moratorium on longterm contracts and given the province and their newly-formed and progressive Professional Game Board (PGB) their full backing.

However, for the PGB to make tangible progress in the badly-needed redevelopment of the Sportsground, Connacht needed the Heineken Cup after 16 years on the outside as the poor relations of Irish rugby. Cue the newly-built Clan Terrace. Just like that.

Now too, the players and supporters no longer feel like the pariahs of European rugby. So it was that they reacted with such undiluted glee to meeting the ultimate European powerhouse, Toulouse, for Connacht couldn’t have asked for a more attractive fixture around which to shape their season-ticket, marketing and ground redevelopment strategies.

All three home games are already near 9,000 sell-outs and, in advance of their first foray in the Stoop tonight against Harlequins, the buzz around Galway and beyond is, by all accounts, unprecedented. Joe Healy, the former Connacht backrower who has coached his former club Galwegians, UCC and Connemara and is Galway Bay FM’s co-commentator, cites the everyday example of meeting old friends for coffee.

“These might be guys who would normally follow GAA, be it hurling or football, but knowing of my background, for weeks now they have been asking ‘how will the Connacht boys do?’ Or they’ll make observations about the progress at the Sportsground and the Clan Terrace.

“People are also quite positive about the whole thing, as opposed to being critical or fearful, or wondering: ‘God, is this too big a step up?’ It’s shining a positive light on Connacht rugby. But we wouldn’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. The grassroots in the GAA is still very strong and rightly so, because they are such a good organisation, but the light is very squarely on rugby for once.”

It’s always been a greater struggle economically and for sport in the west than elsewhere, and with the Galway United football team having been relegated and with the county’s hurling and Gaelic football also at a low ebb, this is all the more welcome.

“In fairness to the Connacht Branch there have been flyers all over the place for over a month,” adds Healy. “There’s one on every second lamp-post on the promenade in Salthill all the way into town promoting this concept of a Green Mile. You’re seeing evidence of pageantry everywhere, and it’s helped that anyone who has even the remotest interest in rugby knows who Toulouse are. There’s a great sense of occasion that one of the huge giants of international rugby are coming to Galway.”

Nor is there a feeling of impending doom despite the scale of the draw, with Connacht being pitted against the leaders in the French and English leagues along with another team, Gloucester, from the Premiership. Ne’er a Pro 12 team in sight. Bring it on.

“I’ve been watching pretty much all their (Connacht’s) games in the last couple of years and they have been playing very, very good rugby,” says Healy. “They have become very competitive in all their games and this season have started to come out on the right side of close games more often.

“We all hope that this Connacht team finds the resilience to perform, especially in front of their own fans. And in the Sportsground you never know. Remember when Toulon came here for the Challenge Cup semi-final two years ago and but for a bad decision at the end of a long sequence of scrums that might have turned out differently. Toulon couldn’t wait to get out of Dodge and you never know what might happen at the Sportsground.”

The away games, starting tonight against the unbeaten Premiership leaders, are admittedly more daunting, though Healy maintains: “Harlequins at the Stoop will hold no great surprises anyway, whatever about fears, because Connacht have played them there a couple of times in recent years.”

“Gloucester will be a tough assignment too and Toulouse away in January will be an enormous task given the way French teams target their home games. But while they’ll be daunting, Connacht will have absolutely nothing to lose and they will learn a lot about coping with that that type of pressure and intensity. So while they’ll be hostile environments, they’ll be a great learning curve.”