In 2009, Tiernan O’Halloran was 18-years-old and excited about heading into the Connacht academy. That all changed pretty quickly and it has not slowed down much since then.
The Clifden native was drafted into the senior squad, under Michael Bradley, and given a developmental contract. Within three months he was making, and scoring a try on, his Connacht debut.
Eight years, four head coaches, over 130, thousands of new supporters flooding into The Sportsground and an endless blur of line breaks, defenders beaten and metres gained.
O’Halloran joined The Hard Yards to talk about his journey with Connacht and one – how could we forget – that included one of the most unexpected and exhilarating league wins in Celtic/Magners/PRO12/14 history.
“If you look at The Sportsground now to what it was like when I came here in 2009, it’s incredible the amount of changes there have been around the place. In terms of the facilities, upgrades in staff. Everything.
“In my first year, the gym was the size of a small changing room. You had to take turns doing your reps on the bench as there was only one bench for 30, 40 people.
“It’s mad and it’s obviously great to see that growth in Connacht Rugby. That has came off the back of success. Under Eric Elwood’s era, that was our first time in the Heineken Cup and that brought a lot of interest in us and that helped massively. They built the Clann Terrace and that’s great – the weather here is pretty cap most of the time – and it helps getting more people in the door.
“You’d only have a thousand or just over a thousand people at the start. But with Heineken Cup rugby, we had teams like Saracens and Toulouse coming to The Sportsground and that’s a big draw. And it just started to progress from there.”
What O’Halloran recalls from the Elwood era was that, as enjoyable as it was, Connacht struggled badly for consistency. They would take a big scalp one week then go winless for the next four or ‘ship 40 or 40 points’.
The fullback credits former head coach Pat Lam with changing the culture of the club and moving them away from a team with two or three big performances and a lot of frustration in between. “Pat brought us into the mentality,” he says,”that we were going into every game to win it.”
It seems so simple but once Connacht started to string victories together, it began to dawn on the team that something profoundly positive was afoot.
Lam’s first season was not easy but real signs of progress followed in 2014/15. The following season culminated in that wonderful, winning run to Murrayfield and the dismantling of a star-studded Leinster team.
“We just had that confidence that we could go out an execute our game-plan, no matter what team we played or what situation we found ourselves in. We knew that if we backed our game that we would win.”
Lam has moved on Bristol now and Kieran Keane is midway through his first season at Connacht. Reaching those heights again won’t be easy but O’Halloran and plenty of his teammates are dead-set on trying to get there.
