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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Connacht Rugby reveal plans to build a community rugby home.
There could be a big boost for rugby in the province and consequently in Mayo after Connacht Rugby Chief Executive Officer Willie Ruane announced plans for a new Connacht Community Rugby Hub, at a media event in Galway yesterday.
"We have the intention of developing a Connacht Community Rugby Hub," Ruane said. "And that would be somewhere around the middle of the province so that the whole province is able to access it. We have a lot of clubs who are trying to improve their facilities, trying to develop their facilities, and rather than having every single club and every single school trying to build more and more and more to try and sustain themselves, so we're looking to create a hub that will be an overflow facility for them all to use."
The Mayo native also pointed out, that the new hub will allow Connacht Rugby use it for its pathways programme in terms of different teams that come together every now and again. It will allow Connacht to be able to play different matches there, to serve as a facility for the wider game.
In general it's exciting times for Connacht Rugby. The club's home ground, the Dexcom stadium, is literally a construction site at the moment, but Ruane expects the new home ground to be completed within the third quarter of 2025.
However, the man who has led the development of the game in the province is already thinking further ahead: The idea for a new project for a community rugby hub is a result of a facilities audit that Connacht Rugby executed among the clubs.
"For that audit effectively we went around the whole province saying what is it that you have?" explained Ruane: "How many teams, how many participants, how many pitches have you got? How many changing rooms have you got? And it was obvious from that facilities audit, there's a complete shortfall."
The plans for a community rugby hub in Connacht are still in their formative stages and they are part of a wider new ten-year strategy that the province presented yesterday (Monday).
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Read more about Willie Ruane's plans with Connacht Rugby in Tuesday's Mayo News.
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