He may be a Leinster season-ticket holder but journalist Brendan Grehan can appreciate the big picture when it comes to last Friday’s result in Galway.
DAVEY HENSHAW was teak-tough, I never saw him play a game but Karl O'Sullivan always said he was one of the best tight-heads in Ireland. Henshaw played for Connacht in the late 80's and hailed from Athlone.
Karl O'Sullivan also grew up in Athlone and he was one of my heroes in school. One would think that you wouldn't have a hero in your own year but Karl was cut from a different cloth. He was the tight-head on the Blackrock College 1987 winning Senior Cup Team. But he wasn't a jock or a glory-hunter. Front-row forwards tend to be pretty decent human beings. Like their position, they are solid and dependable and Karl like his team-mates in the '87 front row, Johnny Quirke and Justin 'Fletch' Lennon, you could put your house on them and the bank shares too (those were the days).
One could accuse me of engaging in schoolboy nostalgia but sometimes you just have too remember those days of tip rugby, muddy boots and jumpers for goalposts.
Karl was one of the fittest schoolboy players out there. Remember, he locked the scrum but when he was 16 or so, he announced that he was going to run the Dublin Marathon and he would have too if somebody hadn't stopped him. He completed a remarkable treble along with two other players from 87, Derek Liddy and Michael O'Brien, of winning the SCT for Blackrock College, The McCorry Cup (U19) and The Leinster Senior Cup against DUFC for Blackrock College RFC. It was an incredible triple in over slightly more than a calendar year and I can't recall anybody else doing it.
He studied in Trinity for a while and then joined the Defence Forces as a cadet. He was originally in the Air Corps and legend has it that he had to transfer to the Army because his shoulders were too wide to fit in the cockpit. Karl went on to play for Connacht at senior level and is still as far as I know in the Army. He was another great prop from the west like Ray McLoughlin before him.
As primarily an Irish rugby supporter, it was good to see the men from the west trounce Leinster in Galway. The result was good for Irish rugby and might be good for Leinster too. Leinster have been here before. In 09/10, they lost in Treviso and many were questioning Joe Schmidt's appointment at the time. Nine months later all had changed and the streets of Cardiff were filled with Leinster blue.
Munster in Lansdowne Road on Saturday will be the perfect red rag for Schmidt's men and I have every confidence that they will turn the ship around.
The real question is can Connacht consolidate their form and have a great, consistent season?
Playing in the Heineken Cup last season was an undoubted filip and morale boost for the Galway boys but certain sections of the Anglo-Welsh media seem to think that Connacht have no place in the top tier of European Club rugby. Mr Jones and his ilk are wrong because Connacht may be minnows but they have the capacity to be giant-killers. Whether they can consistently slay Goliath with a Galway sling is another thing and that is the real challenge for Eric Elwood's men.
One of the aspects of rugby in the professional era that really annoys me is the provincial small-mindedness which has no place in our code of football. So some 'fans' and commentators patronise Connacht as the nearly men, the third-raters, the soft touch while there lies in the West the true heart of Irish rugby. It was where Gatland got his start and it is not inconceivable that Eric Elwood could coach Ireland some day with the same guile and dignity that he wore the green jersey of the four provinces.
Connacht have given so much to Irish rugby over the years. So many great players, so many memories. Neville Furlong scoring a try against the All Blacks in 1992 with a broken leg, Connacht beating Northampton in Franklin Gardens, Noel Mannion from Ballinasloe racing down the field in the Arms Park, Ciaran Fitzgerald leading from the front, Mark McHugh kicking like a metronome, Connacht beating a Willie-John era Ulster.
While Friday's result may be bad news for us up in soy latte land, it could be boost that Irish rugby needs as we face into the autumn internationals against a Pumas side hardened by matches on the high veldt and both sides of the Tasman sea.
Brendan Grehan is a journalist.
twitter: @brendanxavier
