Connacht Clan Club's Night

The Connacht Clan are holding their first Club's Night this week at the Connacht versus Edinburgh match. This is hoped to be the first of many annual Club's Nights that the Connacht Clan will organise, to bring together the entire rugby community in the West once a year at the Sportsground. The response has so far been very positive from the Branch, the Clubs, and local businesses who have fronted up with some great prizes for the clubs involved.

The top prize is a fantastic pre-season training session with Eric Elwood and co. along with a nights free accommodation at The Salthill Hotel for a squad of up to 22 players!
The 2nd prize is a cash giveaway of €500 to help clubs get the equipment that they need for the season ahead, kindly sponsored by Medtronic, Snoozles Hostel and An Púcán Bar.
The 3rd prize is another cash bonanza of €450, this time donated to the lucky winning club by RDJ Glynn Solicitors, Sleepzone Hostel, The Dew Drop Inn.
The 4th prize is an intersting one... a bout of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) training at the Point Blank Gym. The session will focus on balance and contact for rugby players, making your players harder to bring down as well as harder hitters.
The Róisín Dubh has donated €200 worth of gig tickets for those all important team nights out after the match.
A €200 voucher for The Huntsman will certainly help in that regard as well!
HoneyBee's Health Store in Claremorris has donated a whopping €150 worth of health goods to keep the squad in tip-top condition... and some much needed recovery from the above 2 prizes I'd imagine.
Other Prizes:

• Prize Kings Head €100.00 food vouchers
• Great Outdoors Mens & Womens Sports watch
• MJ Farrell Jewellery - Jewellery to value of €100.00
• Tamarind Food Vouchers €100.00
• Bar 8 Dinner for Four people
• Evergreen - Assorted mix of Supplements
• B & B Carlton Hotel
• Keg of Heineken
• Food Vouchers Kellys Bar €50.00
• Food Vouchers Kai Restaraunt €50.00
• Food Voucher Forster Group €50.00

Not only all of that but the deals are great value, including bus (if out of Galway) or a pint and dinner in Buskers (if in Galway) plus your match ticket. Ask at your local club to get your ticket. Remember that the more people who come from your club the greater your chances of winning some prizes. Tickets sales are closed on Wednesday morning, so hurry up!

Nathan White Signs 3-Year Deal

Connacht have announced that Nathan White will move west from Leinster this year on a 3 year contract that will see the 30 year old wearing green until the start of the summer in 2015. The experienced tight head prop moved to Leinster last season and has played just around 400 minutes, however word from Leinster fans is that he looked very good when he was on the pitch, physical in the loose, but very much able to lock down a scrum as well. No doubt the recent IRFU rules limiting the number of foreign players per position in the big three to one may have influenced the thinking in the East.
Regardless of politics, Nathan is a great signing for Connacht. He was a captain at Waikato and was capped 77 times for them before moving north. He should definitely provide some more depth to one of our key positions.

TV in the Clan Bar

We have managed to get a telly into the Clan Bar... spiritual, and sometimes actual, home of the Connacht Clan. We hope to use it to spread information about upcoming Connacht Clan events and news, as well as the occassional game analysis session! This is just the first in a long list of improvements that we intend to implement to make sure that Connacht supporters have the best match-day experience possible.
A big thanks goes to Connacht Clan committee member Barry Dolan who gave up nearly his entire Saturday to get it set up.