Connacht Rugby Embraces New Dawn with Clan Stand Opening

Connacht captain Cian Prendergast has called on his side to "lean into the occasion" as the province prepare for their new dawn on Saturday. This weekend's visit of Leinster to Dexcom Stadium will mark the opening of the province’s new 6,555 capacity Clan Stand, and the completion of the €40m redevelopment at the Sportsground, which has been ongoing for close to four years. The new stand, which has replaced the old Clan Terrace, brings the stadium capacity up to 12,000, and the sold-out signs have been up at Dexcom Stadium since early December, ahead of the province’s new era. "We've spoken about how it's going to be amazing," Prendergast said, ahead of Saturday’s Interpro. "Everyone's had this game circled in their calendars for about two years now. "But to be honest, for us, it's about bringing the stadium to life with our performance. "What truly makes it special is how we play and how we embody the west of Ireland and give the Connacht fans a team that they want to support and they want to get behind and show them a glimpse into what the new Clan Stand is going to be like with our performance." While this redevelopment was taking place, the province made lemonade with those lemons by bringing their home Interpro with Munster to Hastings Insurance MacHale Park last March, where a bumper crowd of 27,870 people came to Castlebar as Connacht fell to a 30-24 defeat in a thrilling contest. And while that game came some months before the arrival of new head coach Stuart Lancaster, the Englishman has been using that as an example of how they must handle the occasion this week. "I spoke to a lot of the lads about the game in Mayo last year and they felt that last year they probably didn't reference that enough in the lead up to the game and probably the size of the occasion surprised them when they actually got there," Lancaster said. "And they were 20 minutes into the game before they really realised the significance of it when they saw what Castlebar was like. "So it's something we've talked about, but equally, we've trained on this pitch all season, it's not like it's new for us." Prendergast only played 25 minutes of that game before a serious injury required him to be taken to hospital. But the Ireland international believes the team have learned valuable lessons from that day. "I think it's an element of lean into the occasion and allow it bring the best out of you," said the Ireland back row. "I think we expected in Castlebar, because it was an occasion, that it would bring the best out of us. "I think it's about how we process the week, constantly reinforcing the privilege and the responsibility we have to not just Connacht as a place, but to the west of Ireland, to deliver a performance and to show the Connacht fans that this place is truly going to be special and Saturday is the start of it." While the new stand doesn’t open its doors to supporters until the weekend, the squad did get a taste of their new surroundings against Montauban in the Challenge Cup on Saturday, using their new dressing rooms for the first time. Motivation will be easy for Connacht this weekend, but that will only be fraction of the battle against Leinster, who are on a nine-game winning run in all competitions. One of those victories was against the Westerners t at Aviva Stadium just two and a half weeks ago, a 52-17 rout. Connacht did end a four-game losing run with a 75-14 hammering of Montauban in the Challenge Cup on Saturday, but they won't be putting much stock in that 11-try win given the standard of the opposition. Overall, it’s been a difficult first half of the season under Lancaster (above), with just two wins from eight games in the URC. But Prendergast insists the squad are ready to kick on, in spite of some heavy defeats in December and January. "I think we're quietly building along in terms of putting a performance together," the Connacht captain added. "I think you could see maybe the Leinster game in the Aviva, we probably put 20 minutes together where we felt like we showed a version of ourselves that we want to put out there "The challenge for us is can we deliver for 80 minutes now and what will be a really special evening. "We look at the results and there's a couple of them that are outliers. The Dragons game wasn't acceptable and then the second half against Leinster "A loss is never acceptable but for us, but we're seeing things that we're doing right and it's just building on it and stacking the good things that we're doing on top of each other. "Stacking the good days, stacking the good training days, and then we know that we're getting fitter, we know that our game plan is starting to get embedded, it's starting to become second nature, so we're all confident in what we do. "And we're just ready to rip in on Saturday and then against Zebre, and that'll lead us into what is an exciting run in at the second half of the season."