All roads lead to Edinburgh for Connacht’s green giants

Rob Murphy

NEXT Saturday at 5.30pm, Connacht and their legion of supporters will invade Edinburgh for the Guinness Pro12 final against Leinster. What seemed unimaginable at the start of the season has become very real very quickly.
Pat Lam’s young squad have brought life, energy and raw emotion to a 15-year-old competition that spans four countries … and they aren’t finished yet.
Back in September, uncertainty surrounded the men in green. Real progress had been made in Pat Lam’s first two years in charge, but a big breakthrough was needed. And with no major off-season signings, some wondered whether the young squad could better the 2014/15 season and make the top six.
The start was good, with lots of wins and lots of points garnered, but all that while the World Cup took place. By the time they got to Thomond Park in November, they had won six out of seven, and that proved to be a catalyst for them to make history against Munster by winning in Limerick for the first time since 1986. It was the moment when imaginations started to run wild.
Yet the top four still seemed a long way off, though top six and Champions Cup qualification seemed possible.
The Christmas period brought some bumps, including a last-minute home loss to Ulster (the only defeat at the Sportsground in 15 games) and a 13-0 defeat in Leinster, followed by a heartbreaking last gasp defeat away to Llanelli. But by February, everything was back on track.
The wins flowed. Dragons away, Zebre away, Ospreys at home, Edinburgh away, and the wider Pro12 fan base began to realise Lam’s men were not going to go away.
After the win in Edinburgh, top two became the target and the all-important home semi-final in the play offs. Victories over Leinster, Munster and Glasgow secured as much.
Each result more daring and impressive than the last. So by Saturday evening in Galway, the expectations and belief had grown to fever pitch, and no one was surprised when the men in green delivered a 16-11 win in their semi-final rematch with Glasgow to reach the decider.
The Pro12 organisers have made a hash of things by fixing this game for Edinburgh despite knowing that 30,000 people would be running a marathon in the city on the the same weekend.
Getting to Scotland is going to take a lot of innovative logistical planning.
The ferry from Belfast to Stranraer will be packed with Connacht fans, and every plane heading anywhere north of Liverpool is almost booked out.
The full story of the 30 games that have preceded this weekend’s showpiece will be told in a multitude of formats in the next few weeks.
Put simply though, with a fraction of the budgets and population, the men from the west have taken on teams packed full of international talent and developed a game plan and a skill set that has proven almost impossible to curtail.
Now only Leinster stand in the way of the most audacious title-winning season in professional rugby history.
The West’s awake!