“I’m proud of the fact I’ve been here through some very tough times. I certainly don’t want to go back to them.”
John Muldoon knows success – he is the captain of Guinness PRO12 champions Connacht.
He also knows failure – he has endured 15-game losing streaks, eight-game losing streaks, six-game losing streaks [you get the picture].
Losing three games at the start of this season was a pain in the hole but it was nothing new. A lot of people argued. Nobody panicked.
“I said it to the players, ‘We’ve been here before’. We went through a similar scenario last season where we lost four or five on the bounce around Christmas time.
“What did we do back then? We went back and we worked hard at certain areas and we saw results straight away.
“We weren’t panicking and we weren’t getting too worried, but also when you get a good win like last weekend. yes we made mistakes, but it helps to have a win and reinforce everything we did well during the week and in the previous weeks that helped us get that result.”
Thank God for Edinburgh, a team in perpetual crisis even when they reached a Heineken Cup semi-final in 2012. League-leading Ulster are next and a win is absolutely vital as the Champions Cup takes up the running.
Jake Heenan, take a bow https://t.co/OPgc9Ftpuc
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 1, 2016
Toulouse are first up and there will be a bevvy of media covering that game. Connacht are getting used to cramming scribes into the Clan Stand press box.
If they want any reminder, though, that they can be forgotten as quickly as they were celebrated, the handful of journalists that showed up for the impressive Edinburgh win was just that. 40 last May, four last Friday.
Muldoon is in no way eager for Connacht to return to old ways but he appreciates the rough as much as the smooth. He says:
“I’m proud of the fact I’ve been here through some very tough times. I certainly don’t want to go back to them.
“We have our history, it’s a lot like where we’re from and the landscape and the environment we’re in, it’s a tough place. But inside that tough place there’s a beauty to it – maybe I’m getting sentimental in my old age. But there’s something special about it.
“If you come to Galway, there’s a harshness to it, but there’s a beauty to it. We’re seeing a lot of that in Connacht Rugby recently and the more of that we can get and the more good will we can bring.”
Muldoon believes Connacht’s future, and all the good that can come from it, is dependent it has to be based on homegrown players.
The current crop of lads that started with rivals provinces, foreign recruits [and lads on their way to becoming Irish qualified] have bought into the team culture but that was not always the way. He comments:
“I’ve been in a dressing room before when people said – I was quite young at the time -‘We’re on TV this weekend. It’s a great opportunity for us’.
“What do they mean by that? They mean it’s a great opportunity for teams to look at us, so we’d be picked up by another club. I never thought about it that way. I always thought every day was a great opportunity for me to go out and play for Connacht.”
The TV cameras are in Galway now and here in force but nobody, Muldoon insists, will be playing up for them. They’ll be playing for the province; the crest; the honour.
The GAA Hour pays tribute to the unbeatable Dubs and ask where did it all go wrong for Mayo in the All-Ireland final replay. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.
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