Grounded for the big one

The two sides have won four from four to start the season and put their unbeaten records on the line. While the results have gone well, there have been frustrations for coaches Tony Dolan (Buccaneers) and Phil Pretorius (Corinthians) during the first few rounds.

Most of them centred around the movement of Connacht professional home games from Fridays to Saturdays which does nothing for the promotion of the club game.

That – added to the fact that Pat Lam is eager to bring as many young players into the fold as possible – is causing a lot of disruption to the province’s leading club sides.

Take last week for example, where Corinthian number eight Eoghan Masterson and Buccaneer number 10 Jack Carty were brought into the Connacht match day squad as additional cover.

While this is a great boost for two young players with big ambitions, they both ended up with no game time, a point that Pretorius highlighted at the weekend. “The moment you put a 24th or 25th man in a professional squad, the knock on effect is tremendous for the sport.”

“We learned on Thursday that Eoghan (Masterson) was not available to us for Dungannon. When he doesn’t play any rugby in a weekend, I’m not sure of the long term benefit of having him in the match day squad for his development.”

Tonight’s game could have a huge bearing on the Division 1b promotion race. The strength of Buccaneers is hard to pinpoint as they have depth and options in all of the key positions. They have picked up an additional bonus point to keep their noses in front of Corinthians so far, that came in their opening day win at Belfast Harlequins.

Pretorius confirmed that Corinthians’ star player, Aaron Conneely, is ruled out of the derby with a leg injury, which he described as a “huge loss” as the openside flanker has been “outstanding” in the first four games of the season. He will be replaced by local player, Donncha Phelan (23), who has been with Corinthians since under-12s and who worked his way up through the ranks.

The Head Coach said his charges showed incredible heart to mount an amazing comeback last weekend to beat Dungannon. “We have played some fantastic rugby during the first four games of the season. I think we showed so much guts last week as well. We were 13-3 down with 20 minutes to go, playing against the wind, it was raining and Dungannon were playing really well and controlling the game.

“But in the last 20 minutes our guys showed real guts. It was a great comeback. We scored three tries in the last 15 minutes which was fantastic and we won 24-16. We’ve scored three tries now in all four games so we are still searching for that first try bonus points.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.