Connacht Rugby has confirmed that seven new players have been offered contracts with the NUIG Connacht Academy under Nigel Carolan from the beginning of 2015\/16 season.<\/p>\n
Photo L-R: Conor Kyne, Cormac Brennan, Pat O’Toole, Cian Romaine, Stephen MceVeigh, Conor Lowndes, Conan O’Donnell of the NUIG Connacht Academy. (c) Inpho Photography.<\/p>\n
Eoghan Masterson, Ultan Dillane and Caolin Blade all graduated to the senior squad this season after earning valuable game time in the Guinness PRO12 and European Challenge Cup last year. <\/p>\n
Of the seven new Academy recruits, Conan O’Donnell, Stephen McVeigh and Cian Romaine played pivotal roles with this year’s Ireland Under-20’s in both the IRB 6 Nations and World Rugby Championship. <\/p>\n
The Galwegians RFC trio of Cormac Brennan, Conor Kyne and Conor Lowndes have also been recruited while hooker Pat O’Toole who played for the Connacht Eagles last season joins from Galway club Corinthians.<\/p>\n
Cormac Brennan Back Three Galwegians RFC
\nConor Kyne Loose Head Prop Galwegians RFC
\nConor Lowndes Scrum Half Galwegians RFC
\nStephen McVeigh Back Row Buccaneers RFC
\nConan O’Donnell Tight Head Prop Sligo RFC
\nPat O’Toole Hooker Corinthians RFC
\nCian Romaine Lock Buccaneers RFC<\/p>\n
Speaking about the upcoming season and new crop of players, Academy Manager Nigel Carolan said: <\/p>\n
“It’s great to have such a talented group of players coming into the Academy for the coming season. They were all members of the Sub-Academy system last year so they know what we’re about and the sacrifices that are required in pursuit of their goals of becoming professional rugby players. <\/p>\n
“The aim of the Connacht Academy is to produce future winning professional rugby players for Connacht who will go on to play for Ireland. We are delighted that Robbie (Henshaw) and Kieran (Marmion) are achieving success at national level, but it’s also great for Eoghan (Masterson), Ultan (Dillane) and Caolin (Blade) to have their hard work rewarded with promotion to the Connacht Pro Team this year. We want to see more and more Academy graduates playing for Connacht and Ireland.”<\/p>\n
Full list of NUIG Connacht Academy 2015\/16<\/p>\n
YEAR 3<\/p>\n
James Connolly Back Row
\nJamie Dever Tight-Head Prop
\nSaba Meunargia Tight-Head Prop
\nRory Moloney Back Row
\nSean O’Brien Back Row\/Lock
\nRory Parata Centre
\nJacob Walshe Loose-Head Prop<\/p>\n
YEAR 2<\/p>\n
Shane Delahunt Hooker
\nJack Dinneen Hooker
\nCiaran Gaffney Back Three
\nMarc Kelly Back Row
\nConor McKeon Outhalf
\nPeter Robb Centre<\/p>\n
YEAR 1<\/p>\n
Cormac Brennan Back Three
\nConor Kyne Loose Head Prop
\nConor Lowndes Scrum Half
\nStephen McVeigh Back Row
\nConan O’Donnell Tight Head Prop
\nPat O’Toole Hooker
\nCian Romaine Lock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Connacht Rugby has confirmed that seven new players have been offered contracts with the NUIG Connacht Academy under Nigel Carolan from the beginning of 2015\/16 season. Photo L-R: Conor Kyne, Cormac Brennan, Pat O’Toole, Cian Romaine, Stephen MceVeigh, Conor Lowndes, Conan O’Donnell of the NUIG Connacht Academy. (c) Inpho Photography. Eoghan Masterson, Ultan Dillane and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12707,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12705\/revisions\/12707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}