“All the noise and the singing… I felt my eyes watering up.”
Pat Lam had only his family for support when he arrived at Connacht in 2013. It was enough but, in no time at all, his life began to take root.
Having succeeded at Auckland and Samoa, Lam’s unhappy spell with Super Rugby’s Blues lingered. He was a coach going places until the wheels came off at Eden Park.
Starting from Galway was as good as starting from scratch. Almost 20,000 kilometres away from home, in New Zealand, Lam began the climb back.
Lam will present Connacht’s ‘Grassroots to Greenshirts’ strategy for the next four seasons to supporters and stakeholders, in Galway, tomorrow evening. However, on Monday’s Off The Ball, the PRO12-winning coach gave his final interview of a stunning season.
Lam spoke of how he delivered a Powerpoint presentation to the Connacht squad, upon his arrival, where he stressed the importance of his Kiwi and Samoan heritage and how much family meant to him. He continued:
“Over the course of the season, I got each of the players to deliver Powerpoint presentations on what was important to them. They spoke about family, heritage and grandparents. They always got emotional about the grandparents…
“I wanted to create a team that was like family and that had that sense of belonging.”
Lam’s words, and the presentations, had an affect on the squad a deep bonds were formed. Indeed, New Zealander Bundee Aki [who joined in 2014] has spoken about how Connacht is his family and his teammates “brothers”.
Touching words from the devastating, inspirational @bundeeaki12 https://t.co/2HkceUPygU
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 31, 2016
Lam also wanted to get the squad out to each of the province’s five counties. This would not be a Galway-focused revolution, it would be all-encompassing.
The point of this, he said, was to create that sense of community and the idea that both team and players depended on each other. These excursions to clubhouses and gatherings in Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim and Galway would hit home with players from as near as Dublin and Tralee and as far as Canberra and Hawera.
The hard work took place on the training pitches, with noticeable gains made season upon season.
The hours and hours of slog that went into Connacht’s success – 107 training sessions this season as opposed to 90 in 2014/15 – paid off all season and was abundantly clear in the 20-10 final win over Leinster. Fantastic scores and passages of play were no fluke. Lam said:
“I’ve got video footage of us in training and AJ MacGinty playing through a grubber kick for Matt Healy.
“I’ve got footage of us running the ball from over our own line and scoring. We made sure our other players train as the other team’s defence and really come hard. If we go hard, I want the game to be easier than training.”
Lam stressed that his goal upon arrival in Galway, three years back, was to be the best counter-attacking team in the league.
No-one can argue that Connacht are the league’s best counter-attackers. Lam will re-set the goals over the summer and being Europe’s best counter-attackers will be part of that. The Champions Cup beckons.
For now, Lam is warmed by the memories of Connacht’s triumphant arrival into Knock [Ireland West] Airport in the early hours of Sunday morning and the journey back to Galway City.
“The unbelievable bonfires [lit along the road back]… I was trying to work it out but the Irish boys let me know why they did bonfires.”
They presumably let Lam know that bonfires are lit in celebration. Not for the first time, over a crazy 48 hours, Lam and his players had “watery eyes”.
The Kiwi summed up Connacht’s season, and his three years with the province, with a fantastic comment – “Everything we do is for the people.”
Next season, they will give everything so they can give everything again.
