Connemara
Connemara
RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB
Connemara RFC has been enjoying a fantastic season this time around.
With this in mind Rugby Club Magazine recently caught up with current
Chairperson PJ Heffernan to gain an insight into their success.
PJ told us, “I’ve been involved now for over thirty
years, I loved the game of Rugby, then my sons Oisin
and Fionn started playing rugby as well as my Daughter
Roisin. The biggest challenge of my role is having enough
time to do everything from maintaining the pitch to
attending matches while running a local Restaurant and
bringing up a family. The rewards are when you see the
player’s joy and pride when they win games, leagues
and cups. I have great pride when some of them go on to
play for Connacht or Ireland.
“The atmosphere at the moment is very positive and
excited. Our J1 team are unbeaten in the Connacht J1
league; 13 points ahead of second placed Creggs RFC
and we cannot be caught. We are also in the Semi Final
of the Connacht Junior Cup at home on March 1st. We
won the league and the cup last year so to win them two
years running is fantastic but especially with an 100%
unbeaten record in the league this year. Many of our
youth teams have reached the semi finals and finals of
their respective leagues and cups. As our J1 team have
just won the Connacht League they are now in the round
robin and depending on how that goes we could be
moving up to the AIL.
“The youth side of the Club has grown massively
in the last couple of years. We now have boys playing
from U8 up to U18 and two years ago we started girl’s
rugby which has grown from 1 team to 5 team’s U10
up to U18s. Recently one of our U18 girls Megan Walsh
was selected to join the Irish women’s U18 team, a great
achievement. We have had many players qualify and
play with Connacht rugby over the years, one of these
being Tiernan O’Halloran.
“We have a great group of coaches who are involved
at both youth and senior level. We also encourage our
senior players to get involved with the youth teams as
much as possible; they are who the youth aspire to be
one day.
“We are very lucky to have amazing supporters here
in Connemara, they travel to the games no matter where
they are on or what the weather is. The local businesses
are hugely supportive of the club especially with our
fundraising to help run the club and also to help with
our Planned new Development.
“All our players live locally so we are dependent
on the local economy staying good for them to have
employment. We also need to get our development
finished so that there are enough playing areas for them
to play and train.
“We presently have only one pitch and a sand area for
training. Everyone is very positive and optimistic about
the start of our new development. We bought 10 acres of
land adjacent to our existing pitch so we have planning
permission now to develop this. This will include a new
road into the pitch, a second pitch, training paddocks
and a new club house.”
www.rugbyclubmag.com
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