By Linley MacKenzie
“You can't play for Ireland when you're living abroad, so this move made sense. Connacht has everything set up well, good players, good coaching. It matches my ambitions of still wanting to be in a winning team, still wanting to play for Ireland, so it felt like a perfect move.”
Will Connors is the latest Leinster player to head down the M4 and join Stuart Lancaster’s Connacht.
“Time for a change, time to challenge myself in different ways,” the 29-years-old player says of his move west, having made 64 appearances for Leinster after first joining its sub-academy in 2015.
Understandably it was former Leinster coach Lancaster who “piqued” Connors’ excitement to move to Galway. Add in the new Dexcom Stadium, new facilities, a crop of talented young players Connacht is developing - not to mention the more seasoned Bundee Aki and Mack Hansen - and Connors feels something is building in the province.
There were options - heading to France and an exciting lifestyle, but ultimately fading away into a different picture - or, as Connors chose, a different window in Ireland.
“If I wanted to chase a new opportunity and push myself, I felt like this was the place to go,” he says.
Connacht, he says, have everything set up well, good players, and good coaching.
“Stuart [Lancaster] is a great coach, there’s a great crop of players, and I was here on the opening night when playing for Leinster and it was the buzz. I've played in Champions Cup finals, big games, but I've never heard a crowd like that - so passionate, so raw.
“It just felt like a perfect storm was building here, and it is an exciting time to join.”
It is also timely for Lancaster, who, in his second season, and having delivered Champions Cup Rugby after finishing eighth in the URC, looks to build more momentum with Ciaran Frawley, Jerry Cahir, and Francois Van Wyk also joining the western ranks.
First, however, Connors needs to fully recover from an injury suffered in the warm-up before his last game with Leinster when a player stepped on his foot, breaking the second metatarsal.
“It’s been a slow burner, but in terms of moving to a new environment, it’s a fresh outlook, a fresh perspective. There's a lot of different elements to pique your interest, and the need to prove yourself.
For Connors, it is a “fresh slate”.
“I have to prove myself and everyone what I'm about, what I stand for, and you know, that's an exciting part of it as well.”
Both Lancaster and two-times World Cup winner Jacques Nienaber were influential in encouraging Connors’ desire to continue developing his game.
“Jack Nienaber brought me to a new level, so when I couple that with what I've learned through Stuart, I feel I've definitely grown as a player, and that's why I want to prove myself here in Connacht.”
In what he describes as a “crazy competitive back row”, his ambition is to lock down a more consistent position.
“At the end of the day, everyone wants to play for Ireland, and if you ask any Irish qualified player here, what's your ambition, it should be to play for Ireland. The reality is you want to push yourself to the highest level, and you know if your goal is to play for Ireland, it's going to bring out the best of yourself every day.
“I’m a strong believer in that. It's your everyday decisions. You know, there's a lot of pubs around here that are very tempting, but you have to put yourself in the best position, showing up to training on a Monday and riding that tackle.
“I look at the young lads like Harry West, Hugh Gavin, Sam Illo and Billy Bohan, and I think they're not just saying they want to play for Ireland, they actually enact it. They perform on the pitch, they're good fellas around the place, and I think as high-performing individuals to have them as the base of a team is really important.”
Connors, used to Leinster’s high performance and constant player development, always accepted youngsters such as Gary Ringrose and Sam Prendergast would play for Ireland, but now he is viewing Connacht’s crop in a similar vein.
“When I look at this group of young Connacht players, they are fundamentally what the team is built of. If you're from the outside looking in, they are very high performing individuals with exciting careers, and with those kind of players, coupled with the experience of Bundee Aki and Dave Heffernan, I think it naturally creates a good team. No one gets comfortable.”
Despite his pedigree, Connors simply wants to prove himself to Connacht and the fans, while also becoming an ambassador for Energia, which announced its two-year extension of its partnership with Connacht Rugby’s Rugby for All programme.
“I made the decision to fully commit, and I’m not putting a date on it, and that's why I want to get involved with the Rugby for All initiative here. If I was just going up and down the motorway every couple of days, you cannot fully buy into Connacht. So for me to build that identity and buy into it, I need to fully immerse myself in the community, get involved, and that's what I'm trying to do.”
