Front Up, Rise Up: The Official Story of Connacht Rugby

Front Up, Rise Up: The Official Story of Connacht Rugby

For years they were the Cinderella province, the poor relations and the weakest link in Irish rugby, the so-called Development Province, who had never won a senior trophy since their foundation in 1885. There had been the first green shoots of a revolution in 2014-15 when finishing seventh in the Pro12 - a record high - in Pat Lam’s second season as head coach. Even so, they started the 2015-16 season as 50/1 outsiders. <br /><br /><i>Front Up, Rise Up</i> is the story of Connacht’s remarkable journey to becoming the Pro12 champions. The story goes inside the dressing-room, takes in their unscheduled, week-long, bonding trek to Siberia and back for a European Challenge Cup game in November, and all the key twists and turns along the way.<br /><br />It brings us the characters in this Band of Brothers, from the locals such as captain John Muldoon from Portumna to their iconic fans’ favourite Bundee Aki, like Lam a Kiwi from Auckland of Samoan descent, to their Nigerian-born and Dublin-raised match-winner Niyi Adeolokun. <br /><br />It takes in their troubled professional history, which had them on the brink of extinction as a professional entity in 2003 and led to Connacht and their supporters marching to the IRFU offices in a successful bid to keep them afloat.<br /><br />And it culminates in their dethroning of the champions Glasgow in the Sportsground in Galway and their stunning performance in the final against Leinster in Edinburgh to their open-top homecoming in Galway the next day. In the 21 years of professional rugby, there has been no story quite like it.