He announced his retirement at almost the exact same time I wrote that post and made it a moot point!

Obviously it would be nice to have the inductee here to receive a trophy and the plaudits, but we're not making that a requirement. We'll do our best, but if it can't be organised we'll go ahead and induct them anyway. That said, if an opportunity like the example I gave above arises I think it'd be daft not to jump on it.

I understand your point but he may still return, not sure

if your point is that we have to have him here to induct him in person then a lot of former players will be excluded.

Just my opinion, throwing it out there

I get what you're saying, but similarly you could end up with a situation where Connacht play, let's say Grenoble, in the Amlin and we'd be unable to take the opportunity to induct Andrew Farley while he's here (I know he's leaving Grenoble but bear with me) because he's not retired. There will always be weird edge cases but in general it's probably better not to be so restrictive that we end up limiting what we can do.

Just a thought but what if F Carr was brought into the hof when he left, he was our leading try scorer so not unreasonable.

As we all know he has returned! Think that retired or retiring should be the requirement.

Just a thought.

Retiring, retired or have left Connacht, so the two above would be eligible

So for HOF consideration is there an assumption that the player is retiring from professional rugby or they just have to be leaving or have left Connacht? So players like Andrew Farley and Mike McCarthy would be eligible?

FourDogs good, two dogs baaaaaaaaaddddddddd....

ummm, wrote: As much as I dislike F***book etc I can't help but feel a hall of fame vote restricted to the forum where only a small percentage of Clan fans congregate isn't representative of Connacht fans in general, especially when we have other outlets that reach many more fans. The current active forum membership is a fraction of the number of Connacht fans that turn up for home games, so I can't help right now but feel that a hall of fame nomination is more cliquey than indicative of the actual wishes of those who follow Connacht.

And I say this as someone who appreciates all that the Clan committee has said in the past about how the fans on here put more effort in compared to others, but that's not really the essence of a democratic vote, we shouldn't judge who has more of a right to vote compared to others. And as usual, I'm being all problem and no solution, but that's just me all over, so sorry about that, I'm just airing a worry.

Having said that, I'll probably change my mind tomorrow.

You're right. All clan members should be equal, with regular forum posters more equal.

how about getting the club involved? :ohmy:

We do try and blast it out on Facebook and twitter, and it's not like the sign up process is terribly hard either. Putting it somewhere other than the forum would leave it open to manipulation.

And we don't want filthy casual fans voting. Eugh.

As much as I dislike F***book etc I can't help but feel a hall of fame vote restricted to the forum where only a small percentage of Clan fans congregate isn't representative of Connacht fans in general, especially when we have other outlets that reach many more fans. The current active forum membership is a fraction of the number of Connacht fans that turn up for home games, so I can't help right now but feel that a hall of fame nomination is more cliquey than indicative of the actual wishes of those who follow Connacht.

And I say this as someone who appreciates all that the Clan committee has said in the past about how the fans on here put more effort in compared to others, but that's not really the essence of a democratic vote, we shouldn't judge who has more of a right to vote compared to others. And as usual, I'm being all problem and no solution, but that's just me all over, so sorry about that, I'm just airing a worry.

Having said that, I'll probably change my mind tomorrow.

Hi Guys

So we had to make some decisions on this and this is what we have come up with:

Players are eligible if they have left Connacht or are leaving at the end of the current season.
No limits on numbers inducted
Each year a "short-list nominations" thread will be opened by the committee, where forum members can nominate any eligible player for the voting short-list.
The short-list will be drawn up by the committee using the feedback from the nominations thread.
There will be one vote per member of the forum and highest place players will win.
At the committee's discretion there may be a "run-off" vote.

Personally I don't see any need for the Clan to have Hall of Fame. The Connacht Branch already have one and from what I can see they do it pretty well, so we're just duplicating something that already exists.
But given that it's there, I don't think we should have a public vote on every inductee. We'll end up having ridiculous debates on the forum about which of two guys is more of a "legend", and that will end up only insulting one or both of them, which is the opposite to the intention.
Induction should be left up to the committee or alternatively some kind of subcommittee who can put together a list of people that they would like to see in and induct them whenever is convenient. So for example if they know Ciaran FitzGerald is going to be at a particular game, they can announce it in advance and do the presentation to him in person after the game (assuming he meets their approval).

The general consensus seems to be that there's no eligibility rule, they're capable of being nominated as soon as they retire?

menacethedenis wrote:

ConnachtCows wrote: Does anyone else think that there should be something like a 3 year gap after a player leaves Connacht, before their eligible

Why? I'd vote for Ray every year if he wasn't already inducted. Absolute hero. You need 3 years to decide?

I dont need three years at all, I wouldn't vote for Ofisa, but thats my opinion, and I'm not getting into a debate about Ray's virtues.
Similarly, I wouldnt vote Wilkinson this year. Very good servant to Connacht Rugby, but I cant see myself chatting about him in 10 years time as one of Connachts greats.
IMO, only the very best players should get into the Hall Of Fame, and I dont see Ofisa or Wilkinson as two of Connacht's great players

ConnachtCows wrote:
If we were voting next season, I wonder how many people would pick Ofisa

I also agree with Diom.

If we were voting next season or three seasons later, I'd still be voting for Ofisa...