If you want to get there by car, put aside the best part of four days.
As the crow flies, Connacht Rugby are embarking on a 5,950 kilometre trip to Krasnoyarsk ahead of Saturday’s Challenge Cup game with Russian club side Ensiel-STM.
Some of the province’s loyal fans set off this morning for the Central Stadium, which is located a few hundred miles from the Mongolian border.
Pat Lam’s men are top of the Guinness PRO12 after their weekend win over Benetton Treviso. For the next fortnight, however, league ambitions are put aside.
Lam is well aware that Connacht can reclaim their Champions Cup place by winning the Challenge Cup. The first step on the journey is a massive one.
A Connacht spokesperson told us, “We’re travelling from Shannon Airport tonight at 7pm. It will take about four and a half hours to reach Moscow. Then we refuel and have another four hours to Krasnoyarsk.
We’ll arrive at 11:30am local time on Wednesday.”
Krasnoyarsk time [or KRAT] is seven hours ahead of Ireland so the westerners will need a few days to acclimatise, and get used to the biting cold.
Uncapped duo @Peter_Robb & @seanobb 2 of 6 Academy players in 24-man squad for Russia #ChallengeCup #RoadToRussia pic.twitter.com/2bM0rSPByu
— Connacht Rugby (@connachtrugby) November 10, 2015
Lam had his players out for 8am on Monday and Tuesday. Once the team arrives in the Siberian outpost, they were train at similar times [3pm local] ahead of their match on Saturday [3pm KO].
Robbie Henshaw, Kieran Marmion and Rodney Ah You are among some of the players to have drawn the short/long straw. They miss out on the gigantic round-trip.
You can follow Connacht’s trek by keeping track of their Twitter account and checking out #RoadtoRussia
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