{"id":320,"date":"2014-05-25T16:33:30","date_gmt":"2014-05-25T16:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/?p=320"},"modified":"2014-06-02T20:58:33","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T20:58:33","slug":"martin-staunton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/martin-staunton\/","title":{"rendered":"MARTIN STAUNTON honoured as Buccaneers Senior Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"martin<\/a>
\nMARTIN STAUNTON honoured as Buccaneers Senior Player of the Year<\/p>\n

PUBLISHED:MAY 19 2014
\nMARTIN STAUNTON was an immensely worthy and popular winner when named \u2018Buccaneers Senior Player of the Year\u2019 at the club\u2019s Annual Awards event which took place in The Bounty on Friday night. Staunton, who was also nominated last year, was wonderfully consistent and committed again this season and the announcement received a raucous round of applause at the well-attended event. <\/p>\n

The Laurencetown native learned his rugby at Ballinasloe RFC before switching to Shannon for three seasons, the first two with their U-20 Academy. He also switched position from No.8 to prop when he was elevated to their senior squad and the following year he transferred to Buccaneers where he has proved a key addition to the Pirates\u2019 front-row. The 26-year-old, who also played with Connacht U-20s, has now enjoyed five seasons with the midlands club. A software design student at Athlone Institute of Technology, he was their \u2018Player of the Year\u2019 in 2011 and this season captained them to an All-Ireland Colleges Senior Cup triumph from the No.8 berth. The whole-hearted and effervescent forward is a very popular member of the Buccaneers squad and he is hoping that the Athlone club will go one better next season in their quest for promotion. <\/p>\n

The Buccaneers Player of the Year Awards Night returned \u201chome\u201d to The Bounty this year and the big turnout was served up a topclass dinner prior to the formalities which commenced with the presentation of medals to Buccaneers U-20 Cup-winning players. An impressive array of provincial trophies was on view, including the U-20 Cup, Junior Two League, U-19 Plate, U-14 League, U-17 Cup and U-17B League. <\/p>\n

Seven Buccaneers players were selected on eight Ireland teams during the season, continuing a very impressive and proud sequence of caps for club players in recent seasons. Chairman of Football Ray Fagan presented specially commissioned pieces of Athlone Crystal glassware, as follows:- <\/p>\n

Ireland Senior ROBBIE HENSHAW<\/p>\n

Ireland U-20 & U-19 RORY MOLONEY<\/p>\n

Ireland U-20 JACOB WALSHE<\/p>\n

Ireland Womens Elite Sevens NIAMH Ni DHROMA<\/p>\n

Ireland U-19 CIAN ROMAINE<\/p>\n

Ireland U-18 Clubs COLIN KENNY<\/p>\n

Ireland U-18 Schools CONOR KENNY <\/p>\n

The Buccaneers Player of the Year Awards from U-19 up to Senior then followed. The winner was selected from three worthy nominees in each team grade and Athlone Crystal trophies were presented by club President Frank Sheeran and Richie Hickey, representing AUDI ATHLONE, Buccaneers title sponsors. The winners were:- <\/p>\n

Senior MARTIN STAUNTON<\/p>\n

U-20 CONOR McGRATH<\/p>\n

Womens AISLINN KELLEHER<\/p>\n

Seconds NIALL FLYNN<\/p>\n

Thirds MARTIN LYONS<\/p>\n

U-19 CONOR MORRISSEY<\/p>\n

…….. for the full story :>> http:\/\/www.buccaneersrfc.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARTIN STAUNTON honoured as Buccaneers Senior Player of the Year PUBLISHED:MAY 19 2014 MARTIN STAUNTON was an immensely worthy and popular winner when named \u2018Buccaneers Senior Player of the Year\u2019 at the club\u2019s Annual Awards event which took place in The Bounty on Friday night. Staunton, who was also nominated last year, was wonderfully consistent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[121,240,34,165,91,241,35],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","tag-buccaneers-2","tag-martin","tag-of","tag-player","tag-senior","tag-staunton","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","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=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}