Hallelujah. Praise be the Lord, or the AIB League, or whoever. At last a game worth getting excited about outside of the normal confines (i.e. Division One and usually in Limerick). The match of the day, maybe the month, must be the Division Two summit meeting between Connacht's finest, Galwegians and Buccaneers, in Glenina today. What's seldom is wonderful.
Ever since Connacht bade adieu to the Conference in Agen, this fixture stood out, and five wins apiece has set it up nicely. Galwegians, with their summer recruitment drive and all-Connacht back-line; Buccaneers, with their grisly old juggernaut of a pack who have steamrollered everyone so far. It's a bit of a grudge match too, and not only does it decide who are top dogs in Connacht (and maybe a few Connacht contracts) but as an aside most probably in Division Two as well.
Thus, it could well be that today's outcome will ultimately decide that sole automatic promotion spot, with the losers left to contest the play-off. Coming on the heels of Clontarf's elevation, there could be no greater shot in the arm for the first division than the presence of a Connacht side. The prospect of two joining the club elite is even more eye-popping, all the more so given where they've come from.
With a huge Westmeath contingent heading westward, Galwegians are expecting their biggest crowd ever today, in the region of 4,000. Yet two seasons ago, the fixture would have attracted two men and a dog. Galwegians, their proposed merger with Corinthians having collapsed, propped up the Division Three table (when there was no relegation in the league's restructuring) and Buccaneers (an amalgamation of Athlone and Westport in 1994) weren't far ahead of them in the bottom half.
However, last season, they claimed the two promotion places and, further underlining that Connacht rugby is on the up, the western upstarts are seemingly intent on cutting a swathe through Division Two as well.
"A word of caution," though from Buccaneers' coach Eddie O'Sullivan. "Beyond ourselves and `Wegians the province is still in a bit of difficulty. We won the Connacht league by winning three matches and getting two walkovers. Other clubs are struggling. It's not as good as it looks."
That said, O'Sullivan accepts that maybe this is the way Irish club rugby has to go and indeed, seven years ago in his capacity as Connacht coach he recommended the setting up of just three senior clubs to the branch. "One in the Galway area, one in the midlands, and one in the north-west."
The former Galwegians' coach will be surprised, in fact, if both Connacht clubs win promotion. "Even if we finish in the top two, and that's still a sizeable if, the runner-up will have a raw deal in the play-off. The way the first division is hopping about it could be Lansdowne or St Mary's, Clontarf maybe or even Blackrock. So it's hard to see two going up."
Of the two, O'Sullivan reckons that Galwegians, with their 12 or 13 contracted Connacht players and big-game experience would be better equipped for a play-off - all the more so in dryer end of season conditions.
It is this fear of Eric Elwood and co raising their game, allied to their experience of tight, big occasion matches, which worries O'Sullivan. His counterpart Joe Healy is not being entirely coy when rating Buccaneers "clear favourites", for my spies in DLSP and Bective go along with that opinion.
Curiously, the pair have been running into the same opposition week after week, and on lines through DLSP, Bective and UCC, the Buccaneers' juggernaut have shown much the better form. They've scored 22 and 21 tries respectively, but the big difference has been in defence, where they have conceded just one try (and a maximum of seven points in any one game) to Galwegians' nine.
Of their 22 tries, a remarkable 14 have been scored by their forwards (whereas 14 of Galwegians' 21 tries have been scored by the backs). A rejuvenated Noel Mannion leads the way with four, and alongside other old warheads like the Rigneys and Dave Henshaw, open side flyer Owen Brennan has been having a big season.
It doesn't help Galwegians that their dozen Connacht men are effectively in off-season, heavy weights' training for European levels next season. Invariably also, some of them struggled to adapt to the less rarified environs of AIL Division Two after their Conference highs, though Healy contends that the real difficulty has been "trying to marry people together and generate a Galwegians' identity. That's coming though. That's coming."
Galwegians are nonetheless under greater pressure, and are almost expected to win promotion. "No question," chuckles Healy in agreement, "that's why I'm here, to get a kick up the rear if it doesn't work. People are almost disappointed if we don't win by 15 or 20 points. That's just silly."
But either side would gladly take a jammy one point win from this one.
The immediate future of the European Cup could become clearer on Monday. European Rugby Cup (ERC) directors met in Dublin yesterday, their first gathering since the top 12 English clubs announced a blanket withdrawal from next season's Cup and Conference tournaments. Afterwards ERC said a statement will be released on Monday.
