Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

He's been mentioned in another couple of posts since but I'll just quote this one.

DTM picked up a neck injury during the warmup in Lyon. Given that we have both McElroy and Heff fit I don't see any reason to risk a reoccurance six days later.

If it wasn't for that DTM would have 50-60 mins against Lyon and a decent chance of benching this week.

It's as if Connacht branch read our inquisitive minds. The Clan Stand will be demolished at the end of this season with the Sportsground at reduced capacity for the following year. New stand scheduled to open for the 25/26 season. 😁😁😁

There's a new official announcement of the "Dexcom Stadium".

There may be some optics around the government funding there. Half the government funding (€10m) will be coming from the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) which probably requires that Connacht can prove that we're directly funding a minimum matching share. The audit optics may be a lot simpler if it's Connacht's money. The IRFU are authorising us to use all our CVC capital from the URC which we likely couldn't do without their approval. They will also likely be acting as a loan guarantor to get us much cheaper finance.

As always the IRFU remains a very opaque private organisation.

The fact that the ground capacity is being reduced to 3500-4000 for at least next season and potentially more is very worrying in terms of keeping momentum from a supporter perspective. People get out of the habit of going and find alternatives.

Especially with investment in the squad likely to be limited and an underwhelming coaching ticket we risk losing all momentum and ending up with a good facility thats half full. There was no real talk of this when the initial plan came out.

The prioritising of the high performance centre is strange. I appreciate the offices and changing rooms may need to go but it wouldnt take a lot of imagination to use the gym building for a period. We aren't a rich club. The facilities we have were only added in the last 15 years. Increasing the capacity should be priority.

Obviously alternatives are limited. Pearse Stadium isn't going to have lights by then and in Castlebar there seems to be an issue with the surface but given we need to try and keep our supporter base and Mayo GAA still have significant debts on that stadium its disappointing if we haven't investigated that alternative.

Can you show me where it was flagged that capacity would be reduced to 3500-4000 for at a minimum a season? Not having a go just genuinely curious as didn't see anything concrete when it was announced that this would be the case. Also given how this project has progressed so far and the wording of the 42 article it'll go in 25/26 too. I'm guessing it'll be more likely the guts of two seasons which is a long time for fans to be excluded.

There's quality gym facilities everywhere these days. We have partnership arrangements with so many organisations like the Connacht Hotel etc. if needed for extra capacity in the short term.

Again I'd love to see evidence that we have investigated alternatives because if you're going to exclude supporters for a year and a bit at a minimum you owe it to them to check out all options. The branch were all about giving access to all supporters to see Connacht play when they moved the ulster game to the Aviva but that seems to have gone down their list of priorities now.

I actually misinterpreted you original post. I see now that you mean alternative arrangements for the redevelopment season. I'm going to guess that it would be too expensive and very awkward, not to mention not using our 4G pitch for an entire season. No one outside the branch will have the figures to prove that.

If you search for the original 2018 news articles about the redevelopment many will mention the in situ redevelopment. Personally, I remember Willie Ruane being asked about it a couple of interviews that I'll never be able to dig up.

I'd expect this all to be cleared up prior to the season ticket renewals.