GRUDGE MATCH
Last season’s ‘Muldoongate’ adds further spice to what is always a fractious rivalry
WHEN it comes to inter-provincial rivalry in Irish rugby, Munster-Leinster always takes top billing. Understandably so, since they are the country’s two biggest and most successful teams, with the most players competing for Ireland places.
But with all that hype, we tend to overlook the Connacht-Leinster rivalry, which has been festering away high on the undercard for years, stretching far back beyond the advent of professional rugby in the mid-1990s.
Indeed, it is a rivalry that has its roots in historic division long before sport became a factor.
A conflict between the barren, malnourished, underpopulated, weather-lashed West and the lush, well-fed, smug East, whose denizens were uninterested in existence ‘beyond the Pale’ (with Oliver Cromwell’s infamous ‘To Hell or to Connaught’ dismissal a regular rallying cry).
That lack of regard echoes in the rugby rivalry to this day — Conminutes nacht carrying huge amounts of resentment into every meeting with their ‘betters’, while Leinster consistently struggle to ‘get up’ for a fixture they subliminally believe they should win as a matter of course. And, it becomes particularly relevant at The Sportsground, where west meets east again tomorrow evening.
Connacht’s charismatic home ground is a far cry from The Emirates, but is markedly superior to its previous existence before proper redevelopment took place a few years ago.
Leased from the Irish Greyhound Board, the dog track used to create a somewhat surreal, if fitting, atmosphere while the Sportsground’s wide spaces made it especially susceptible to the wild wind and rain hammering in off the Atlantic.
Indeed, it was a regular occurrence that matches would be staged just prior to the Saturday night greyhound meet and, with 20 to go, the dog crowd (often far surpassing their rugby equivalent in numbers) would stream in and fidget impatiently until the rugby boys were ushered off.
It has been a uniquely discomfiting environment for teams to visit, with Leinster particularly unsettled as the home side tap into extra levels of motivation to sow it into the capital city crew, usually with the weather gods togging out in unison.
And even though they should have known what was coming, markedly superior Leinster sides have been frequently caught on the hop, as former centre Gordon D’Arcy recounted recently.
‘My first experience of playing against Connacht at the Sportsground was in October 1998. I was 18. I remember thinking this was Connacht and surely we just have to play our game and we win. A naive boy’s outlook.
‘They won 24-23. Sitting in the dressing-room afterwards I thought: “What has just happened? How did we lose that?”.’
Of course, D’Arcy (who went through a ‘Flash Harry’ phase in his early career that included emblazoning the words ‘South Side’ on his boots) was just the type of ‘posh’ Leinster player Connacht adored putting back in their box.
The not unfounded belief was that the ‘Dublin media’ hyped up their city stars, while Connacht were treated like excrement clinging to the soles of Irish rugby’s shoes and when IRFU bosses in Dublin actually tried to do away with the province in the early 2000s, the resentment ramped up. However, another essential driving force behind this rivalry has been the number of Leinster cast-offs who have headed west to further their careers.
Long before the overflow from Leinster’s academy began to disperse to Munster and Ulster, there was a steady stream of players moving west with a point to a prove (see panel on opposite page).
Steve Jameson and Victor Cos-
tello in the early 1990s were followed by the likes of Conor McGuinness, Bernard Jackman, Ian Keatley and Fionn Carr, while the current squad features a clutch of players (Niyi Adeolokun, Cian Kelleher, Matt Healy, Tom Farrell, Paul Boyle) who could not break through with their home province and are now fuelled by the desire to show Leinster what they let go.
Thus, it is not hard to see why Leinster dread the trip to Galway — getting the bejesus beaten out of you by bitter ex-players in the wind and the rain is a difficult experience to get excited about and has led to some fractious encounters.
One thinks of 2008, when Leinster lost an ill-tempered affair 19-18 on a particularly filthy night at the Sportsground.
Leinster were a far superior side on paper but Connacht poked, prodded and harrassed them to the point of implosion, with furious Leinster coach Michael Cheika (who did little to hide his hatred for the trip to Connacht) refusing to talk to the media after- wards, instead heading straight for his car and the angry drive back to Dublin. Including that victory, Connacht have won six of the 10 meetings at the Sportsground since 2008 — a staggering return given Leinster have claimed four European Cups, three Celtic Leagues and a Challenge Cup over that same period. Their most recent triumph was the 47-10 whupping they handed Leo Cullen’s men last April. True, Leinster had their eyes on the successful run to the Pro14-Champions Cup double and rested a lot of big hitters, while the home side were determined to give John Muldoon a fitting send-off, but it was still an embarrassing scoreline for Leinster, something Connacht fans made them fully aware of. Muldoon’s unplanned conversion of the final try has increased the spice factor ahead of tomorrow’s rematch. Prop Cian Healy felt it was insulting while ex-Leinster winger Luke Fitzgerald went further this week, claiming: ‘It left a really bad taste. It would be an absolute no-no in Leinster to disrespect your opposition when you are beating them badly. It happened in the Sportsgrounds a few weeks before as well and there were a few incidents after the 2016 win that were taken really badly. They hate us down there and there is a real hatred building in Leinster for them.’ Given the valedictory circumstances for a servant like Muldoon, who apologised in his post-match interview, it feels like much ado about nothing but there is no denying it has added to the anticipation for tomorrow’s clash. ‘Connacht always play their best game of the year at home to Leinster,’ says ex-Leinster coach Matt Williams. ‘Leinster hate going there, I can promise you that.’ There really is nothing like a grudge match.