Your getting boring clan clover zzzzz. I never heard a so called supporter ever get so much on a coach or teams back as you do. Give it a rest. Judge when the season is over. You remind me off an old man in the main stand last year who was giving out because we were making to much noise when the team were making there before match half lap. Glass half full

+1

Salmson, you make some very good points but you have also left out some very important points. You briefly mention costs of the Stadia, you forget to mention the rent Leinster have to pay for the use of the RDS, you also fail to mention the loan for Thomand park and Ravenhill and the running of two stadia in Munster, you also left the cost(rent) associated with running the Cork side of the Munster operation. On top of all this you forget to mention the wage bills for Munster ,Leinster and Ulster, which by estimates run into millions per each club and I am not including centrally paid players there, all three of the other provinces also have larger support staff and admin staff to pay for and the costs associated with them. So while your incoming figures may be correct you do not mention albeit only briefly outgoings. Your dream maybe achieved or maybe not, we have just two years left to prove ourselves, if we don't we are gone and that is the hard fact of reality. Also the hard fact of reality is the vast majority of our season ticket sales are purely down to been in the H Cup this year which is thanks to Leinster not anything Connacht Rugby has done. Next year not this year will be a defining milestone in Connacht rugby, if we do not succeed on the pitch this season how many people will buy season tickets next year, which is why results for 2011/2012 season are crucial to the future of Connacht Rugby, which is why they have to get it right. As you know, as you have access to the figures when Connacht start losing at home, the crowds get smaller they are a fickle lot as when we win they get bigger, we also get slightly larger home crowds the week after a derby match, and then it goes back to the normal 1500/1700 hard souls that turn up rain sleet or snow win lose or draw.

Your getting boring clan clover zzzzz. I never heard a so called supporter ever get so much on a coach or teams back as you do. Give it a rest. Judge when the season is over. You remind me off an old man in the main stand last year who was giving out because we were making to much noise when the team were making there before match half lap. Glass half full

Salmson, you make some very good points but you have also left out some very important points. You briefly mention costs of the Stadia, you forget to mention the rent Leinster have to pay for the use of the RDS, you also fail to mention the loan for Thomand park and Ravenhill and the running of two stadia in Munster, you also left the cost(rent) associated with running the Cork side of the Munster operation. On top of all this you forget to mention the wage bills for Munster ,Leinster and Ulster, which by estimates run into millions per each club and I am not including centrally paid players there, all three of the other provinces also have larger support staff and admin staff to pay for and the costs associated with them. So while your incoming figures may be correct you do not mention albeit only briefly outgoings. Your dream maybe achieved or maybe not, we have just two years left to prove ourselves, if we don't we are gone and that is the hard fact of reality. Also the hard fact of reality is the vast majority of our season ticket sales are purely down to been in the H Cup this year which is thanks to Leinster not anything Connacht Rugby has done. Next year not this year will be a defining milestone in Connacht rugby, if we do not succeed on the pitch this season how many people will buy season tickets next year, which is why results for 2011/2012 season are crucial to the future of Connacht Rugby, which is why they have to get it right. As you know, as you have access to the figures when Connacht start losing at home, the crowds get smaller they are a fickle lot as when we win they get bigger, we also get slightly larger home crowds the week after a derby match, and then it goes back to the normal 1500/1700 hard souls that turn up rain sleet or snow win lose or draw.

It's Connacht rugby lads nothing has changed, success and failure on the pitch will be judged on qualification for next seasons hc.

Brads was a failure every year he didn't achieve it and the same applies to Eric.


It's pro sport, achieve the goals your great, fall short for WHATEVER reason and your !!!!e.

No excuses.

You're right every coach and setup is judged on results but I think the goalposts have changed on hc qualification off our own bat being a realistic target. Its a strange situation. Dragons had an ok season last year and finished above 5 teams who all made hc so was their season a failure?

Realistically if we finish 7th or 8th with a respectable hc effort it'll be a good season. The other provinces are all likely to be in or close to top 3 or 4, not like in past years where Ulster were in transition and we could finish in hc play off spot by finishing ahead of 1 welsh side. E.G. Dragons.

If we finish 11th and sneak in to hc again through another provincial success at HC or CC level it'll get us where we want to be but I don't think the season could be regarded as a success.

Ummm with respect your confused, Benson is 27 and Rodders is only a Pup of 22, you're thinking of his younger brother Winston ( playing ITM for Auckland last year and S15 for Western Force next year).

Benson got in to AB squad only due to injuries, and was a very, very very outside shot for RWC. The fact he considered leaving for us and only stayed because of last minute deal says a lot.

But a step up in terms of our usual standard, trying to unearth gems for no money from ITM, Currie Cup and Aus club rugby...

Doh, I'll shut up then.

But if Eric is reading, go get Winston!

Diom I hope I am wrong too.
...we are on an equal footing with all other Irish provinces with the IRFU, any extra money is made up from Sponsorship, we have that too and season tickets and we have over half a million of that too. So all the talk below about lack of resources, feck all money etc etc is rubbish we have it. :

We are not on an equal footing.

It's nonsense to even suggest that.

Yes we get the same amount from the IRFU and have improved our sponsorship and other income streams, but the elephant in the room is ticket sales.

Leinster had almost 400,000 through the turnstiles last year, Munster over 300,000, Ulster over 100,000.

With bigger stadia and crowd come bigger costs, but still, at 30 euros a ticket (and that's conservative) we can estimate their gross ticket revenue to be in the region of 12, 9, and 3 million, respectively.

We got just under 30,000 through the gate at an average of less than 20 quid a pop. That's just 600K, at best.

Attendances have been in or around that figure for the past 10 years.

Yes we have more money this year.

The 3000 season tickets, though cheap, will be offset by the dearer tickets and hospitality for the Heineken Cup (and that's before we allow for the fact that for the first time there is some real matchday income), so we're still talking at least 20 euro's per supporter through the stiles.

I'd be hopeful of selling out the H-Cup matches and the interpros, and maintaining ~3500 attendances for the other games. That would give us over 70,000 people through the gates, maybe 1.5 million ticket sales, which is truly amazing, a greater than 100% increase, but it still leaves us with ticket revenue maybe half that of Ulster.

And I haven't even talked about the other provinces markedly superior matchday income from corporate boxes/tents and so on, and their private benefactors - for instance Leinster's new training/fitness/medical facility on the UCD grounds was, according to the Irish Times, paid for in full by a single 2.5 million euro donation.

The point of these (dry, boring) figures isn't to roll out the béal bocht, but to ask - no, demand - a bit of realism.

We've only just overtaken the Scots in terms of attendances.

The long term play is surely to aim for the 5 or 6 thousand the smaller Welsh teams average, and trust that the quality of player we have in Connacht or can attract from outside wil keep us ahead of the better funded Italians.

Then, maybe, maybe, in 5 or 10 years time, we can have a tilt, every year at the likes of Ospreys, Cardiff, and Ulster, establish ourselves in the right nd of the table, maybe aim for the playoffs or for Heineken Cup qualification on our own merits.

Last Saturday I was screaming in frustration too, but I'm stepping back a bit from that.

I think my dream is more achieveable and realistic than the "fire Eric and it'll be alright" brigade I've been hearing from over the last week.

Though in closing let me say fair play to you for rising up, fronting up, and most important TURNING UP, because much more than Eric, or our tight-head prop, or our fly-half, it's the number of supporters through the gates that determines where we will be in 5 or 10 years.

Ummm with respect your confused, Benson is 27 and Rodders is only a Pup of 22, you're thinking of his younger brother Winston ( playing ITM for Auckland last year and S15 for Western Force next year).

Benson got in to AB squad only due to injuries, and was a very, very very outside shot for RWC. The fact he considered leaving for us and only stayed because of last minute deal says a lot.

But a step up in terms of our usual standard, trying to unearth gems for no money from ITM, Currie Cup and Aus club rugby...

I was very excited by the Benson Stanley rumours. He's by no means a journeyman, he's too young for that, he was on the same All Blacks team as Dave Ah You that won the junior world championships. In fact that was probably the reason Eric was targetting him. Aaron Cruden won player of the tournament, but for my money Stanely was the stand out player of that tournament.


The fact that we targetted him was a sign for me that Eric wanted to improve Connacht, and improve them at a rate of knots. It was a bold move, and I hope there will be more like that. If you don't ask you don't get.

No doubt about it that Eric as a coach is still a work in Progress, he's honest enough to admit it himself.

In the past when we were dreaming of life without Bradley and suggesting replacments I stated my preference on several occasions that we push the boat out financially for a foreign coach with International experience with Eric remaining in his role as assistant or else taking a secondment abroad for a season or two to broaden his coaching knowledge alway swith a view to his return as Head Honchon in the future. The guys in charge decided Eric's time is now, so so be it all we can do is support the guy and hope he gets more things right than wrong.

On the credit side, I don't think we could find someone with as much knowledge about and passion for Connacht Rugby as Eric, the guy is an Icon for rugby in the province and deservedly so. This has been reflected in a lot of the changes that have happened in the last 12 months or so. At last we have a coach who is unafraid to say what he wants and needs in terms of players and resources to do the job right, and I'm pretty sure he's ok with rubbing a few IRFU heads up the wrong way to get what he needs.

I don't believe for a minute that the PGC would have had half the success in getting people to step for ward to join the committee and also in terms of thier success in hunting down any available cash for the Province without Eric Elwood being the flag bearer for everyone to fall in line with...

When you think about Conancht and where we really still are in the scheme of things, just reflect back to the late Spring/ Summer when there was talk of the possible HUGE signing of Benson Stanley, now no disrecpect to Benson or his talents but I was totally unware of his existence and I suspect a good many other Connacht Suppporters were too. Would Benson's signing to a Premiership or Top14 or even the majority of Pro12 sides raise as much excitment? I think not simply because he's a journeyman one of several hundred one cap All Blacks, a very decent player but never going to be a BO'D, Conrad Smith or Yannick Jauzion. But for us it would be big news indeed..

I think we have to be fairly realistic in our expectations, that is not the same as unbridled hope naturally.....

It's Connacht rugby lads nothing has changed, success and failure on the pitch will be judged on qualification for next seasons hc.

Brads was a failure every year he didn't achieve it and the same applies to Eric.


It's pro sport, achieve the goals your great, fall short for WHATEVER reason and your shite.

No excuses.

So we have the same resources from the IRFU! It's certain that it's Elwood's fault that we don't have more than the other provinces!

I think you're fighting a losing battle here CC!

In fairness you could be right. You have made some good points, but really we won't know one way or another if EE has the skills required until he has been given the chance to prove it one way or another. There are no variables now, and he will ultimately have to answer for poor performances, so time will tell.

I hope you are wrong, but we will see.

Diom I hope I am wrong too.
But some people on here think we have no money or resources. Just to make it clear we have exactly the same funding from the IRFU as the other three. So lets not think we have not been given the resources, we have them we have money we are on an equal footing with all other Irish provinces with the IRFU, any extra money is made up from Sponsorship, we have that too and season tickets and we have over half a million of that too. So all the talk below about lack of resources, feck all money etc etc is rubbish we have it. :

We've been winning, albeit marginally, with a new team that has been getting used to playing together. Sure Eric has had nothing to do with this 

All the coaches play their part. It's simple really. As head coach Eric has to, at the end of the day, be held responsible for everything that happens on the pitch. It's what comes with the territory.

Not for a moment would i doubt EE .Think he's doing a great job with the resources at his disposal.The changes from this year and last have been huge .I semi agree about players needing time to settle in .(Couple/Few months should be more than enough) Connacht Fans have a right to feel annoyed and say what they want about the Leinster game.It was terrible.The 2nd half collapse was shocking,but its the only blip so far in the Rabo and may it be the last.One terrible game doesn't necesitate a change and grilling of the Head Coach.Couple more game like this and it will be a different story though.Win against Cardiff won't change everybodys opinion ,but it will certainly help.C'mon Eric and C'mon Connacht!!!!!

Greendragon i'm with you cant believe what i was reading. EE has done well in my eyes he has brought a sense of excitement and hope to all fans except clan clover. no more are we expecting to get a good thumping away from home. and this is only a year and a half  into the job with lets face it feck all money. He did a great job with the u20's few years back and has brought in a few good players. So lads lets stop this shite and start supporting our team witch includes Eric. So Front up, Rise Up, Turn up

How does Clan clover write so much, just to say he does not think Elwood is not a good coach?  I think we get it, but i would just say there is more than one factor in the success, or otherwise of a professional sports team.

Looking forward to a long-winded response!