Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

A very smart move financially and one I’d like to see more often. Watching the matches this season on tv and see the construction site rather than a big crowd can be quite frustrating. I hope they do the same for the Ulster home match and any big European / finals games.

However it is terrible that fans weren’t informed of this before hand. They’ve had long enough to plan the stadium redevelopment and its Such an obvious solution to maximising capacity for the big games. There’s no way this idea just developed in the last couple of weeks.

Ridiculous idea to be dropping this in halfway through the season for one of the biggest home games. Announce it for one of the early home inter pro games next season. We bought tickets for the Dexcom this year and that's where the games should be played. Especially the marquee inter pro matches. It's a money grab and nothing more.

As someone that drives over an hour to go to the home games I'm delighted with this announcement tbh. I live in South Mayo, there are fans traveling from further north than me, one game in our direction surely isn't a deal breaker. Gives me a driving break and gives the opportunity of fans further north to consider going to a game.

Thats what it comes down to for me. Tell me in advance. 100% grow the support around the province. Just dont sell me something, and then take it away

"Dear Mr. Cucumber, your season ticket is going to cost €350 for 12 games in the Dexcom Stadium next season.

The following game, Connacht vs Cardiff will played in a different location within Connacht. You will granted priority access to purchase a ticket for this game at a cost of €25. For none season ticket holders, tickets will cost €35"

Sligo have a strong rugby club too - I'm actually going to watch them play Lansdowne this evening in the semis of the Bateman Cup.

From what I know of it - rugby has some pockets of strength across Connacht. Good underage clubs in certain regions, and increasingly some young players coming from non-traditional places: Fiachna Barrett (Ballina RFC), Harry West (from Mayo, went to boarding school in Dublin), Eoin de Buitlear (Connemara), the Murrays (Roscommon side of Athlone), Shane Mallon (Leitrim).

Tucker could be the next head coach of Connacht. He would be crazy to leave for Munster who are in disarray.

Are you seriously suggesting that they play the game in Dubarry Park?

It's poorly handled rugging season ticket holders after the fact for a trip to Castlebar, but I do see the value in it. I think Pearse Stadium would have been a better from a proof of concept perspective for using it for bigger games, but no floodlights puts the kibosh on that.

You can take the man out of mayo

From Sligo, I would go down 2 -3 times a year to watch connacht stay over night and make a weekend of it. There are fans who go down from here and watch connacht but to put it into context the RDS or Belfast is only an hour extra travel so it's not really something done regularly, a trip to Galway is a full day away. There is huge interest in watching connacht on tv and across all sports people but it's seen generally as a galway thing to attend games. That's why I would be a huge supporter of having 1 game per season around the province. In the North West, Sligo, Ballina and Carrick are 3 very proactive clubs where Football and soccer are king. There isn't a huge amount of players coming from the north West even with the schools doing well, Galway is too far away and the really good players are good at all sports so they drift to county football and sligo rovers.

A one off game a year around the province surely isnt a bit ask, if so maybe rebrand connacht rugby and call it Galway rugby