Rugby News

Club rugby in for a huge boost

November 1, 2024

Club rugby in the West of Ireland is poised a shot in the arm after Connacht Rugby Chief Executive Officer Willie Ruane announced plans for an exciting new facility at a media event in Galway.

“We have the intention of developing a Connacht Community Rugby Hub,” Ruane said. “And that would be somewhere around the middle of the province so that the whole province is able to access it. We have a lot of clubs who are trying to improve their facilities, trying to develop their facilities, and rather than having every single club and every single school trying to build more and more and more to try and sustain themselves, we’re looking to create a hub that will be an overflow facility for them all to use.”

The Mayo native also described, that the new hub will allow Connacht Rugby use it for its pathways programme in terms of their different teams that come together every now and again, for example the Connacht Juniors. So on the one hand, the new hub will allow Connacht to be able to play different matches there, and on the other the hub will serve as a facility for clubs in the five counties.

Exciting times for Connacht
In general, it’s exciting times for the province. The club’s home ground, the Dexcom Stadium, is literally a construction site at the moment. Ruane expects the new home ground to be completed within the third quarter of 2025.
And the man who has led the development of the game in the province since 2014 is already thinking further ahead: The idea for a Community Rugby Hub is a result of a facilities audit that Connacht Rugby executed among the clubs.
“For that audit we went around the whole province saying what is it that you have?” explained Ruane: “How many teams, how many participants, how many pitches have you got? How many changing rooms have you got? And it was obvious from that facilities audit, there’s a complete shortfall.

“Also lights were mentioned as a critical issue for clubs. A lot of players like to play on Friday nights, Ruane summarised. “But many clubs don’t have lights. That’s where the idea of a community rugby hub comes into play.
“So, if we have a facility, we’ll be able to provide greater opportunities for games to be played more often, irrespective of weather and also in terms of being able to play them at different times,” Ruane stated.

Asked about the performances of Mayo grassroots clubs, the Foxford-based Ruane responded: “I think there’s different stories with different clubs in terms of how they’re getting on. If you look at Claremorris, there’s such a growing game within the club. Again, facilities is a challenge for them as they move from, what is effectively a youth club, to become an adult and youth club, which is another challenge for them. A next step.

Ruane acknowledges the need for more qualified coaches and referees: “The women’s game and the girls’ game is growing much faster than everything else. We need to make sure that we have coaches who are going to make that experience as good as it can possibly be.”
It’s not clear yet, where the new community hub will be located. Probably at a venue in the centre of the province, to make it as accessible as possible. The plans are still in their formative stages and part of a wider new ten-year strategy that the province presented in Galway last week.

New ten year strategy for Connacht
Entitled ‘One Connacht’, the new Vision & Strategy is the result of extensive collaboration and consultation with rugby stakeholders in the province, including clubs, schools, volunteers, staff members, players and supporters:
“In addition to our published Vision & Strategy, we have also developed a detailed 5-year plan setting out the specific objectives, enablers and targets for every area of the organisation,” write Connacht Rugby in their official press release: “This document will further help provide the necessary clarity to every person in every role, on-pitch as well as off-pitch, as to what and how they can contribute to the delivery of our collective purpose and vision.”

“The new Dexcom stadium plays a huge role in Connacht’s overall development,” Ruane explained. “Without the stadium, our strategy would have been completely different. It would have been literally just about how do we sustain ourselves, because there are headwinds in the game of rugby and without an enabler like the stadium, we would be talking about how do we sustain ourselves. “Now, we’re talking about a future that is so much brighter than that and opens up so much potential in terms of what we are capable of doing. As part of that, the stadium will give confidence to the whole organisation when it’s there. It’s going to be a landmark building in Connacht, not just Galway. And it’s going to be a state of the art facility.”

Many clubs across the province and in Mayo will hope, that similar things are said about the new Community Rugby Hub in the near future.

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