Michael Moynihan

WELL, talk about being reminded of your place in the pecking order.
While Limerick became the focal point of the entire universe last night – one of the city’s publicans was on the television news saying piously that they were “making history” – as hundreds of years of abstinence on Good Friday were cast aside, there was another Magners League game on not far away.
An hour and a half up the Ennis Road Connacht took on Edinburgh in the same competition that Munster and Leinster were jousting in. However, there were no “calls” for the pubs in Galway to be opened; there was no ullagoning from the publicans of Galway about the loss to them of potential revenue; and as a consequence, the hostelries along Shop Street and elsewhere remained closed.
It’s hard to say which is sadder – the fact that the bars remained closed or the fact that nobody thought it was worth their while agitating as Limerick did (or that nobody thought of piggybacking on the Limerick publicans’ case).
Connacht are aware of their status as second-class citizens in the Irish rugby world. They’d have to be. Their continued existence is regularly the subject of conjecture; they suffer a distinct lack of coverage compared to the other provinces; and their own anthem, about a town in their own part of the world was lifted by the province immediately to their south.
(At least they don’t suffer the justifications of pundits for bad behaviour for their fans, though. We heard an expert declare on radio last night that over-the-top banter in Ravenhill can be blamed on Linfield supporters, while those behind the antagonism heard at Leinster games are Dublin football fans. We presume the segment wasn’t recorded on the previous day, April first.)
And yet Connacht keep ‘er lit. They keep on keeping on. They don’t attract huge crowds or international superstars, but they keep going. They keep winning. When they come under attack they get their community behind them, and that support goes beyond the small rugby fraternity into other sports, who row in behind Connacht Rugby as a symbol of what they stand for.
Last night was a great one for Irish rugby in the sense that you had 26,000 supporters in Thomond Park for Munster versus Leinster, and it was a great night for the publicans in Limerick because they got to open. And as those publicans were saying repeatedly, there’s a link between the two.
It was a good night for Connacht as well, though. The crowd they got to the Sportsground wasn’t motivated by a jaunt to the only wet spot in the country yesterday; they were there because they wanted to see their team.
It wasn’t a good night for Connacht because they got the pubs in their town to open, then. It was a good night because they didn’t.