{"id":411106,"date":"2026-03-30T07:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/411106\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:11:17","slug":"i-dont-have-the-final-say-he-does-stuart-lancaster-says-connacht-did-everything-they-could-to-keep-mattie-devine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/411106\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t have the final say, he does\u2019 \u2013 Stuart Lancaster says Connacht did everything they could to keep Mattie Devine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Matthew Devine of Connacht on his way to scoring his side's third try during the United Rugby Championship win over Ospreys at Dexcom Stadium in Galway. Photo by Paul Phelan\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sports3408552.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Matthew Devine of Connacht on his way to scoring his side&#8217;s third try during the United Rugby Championship win over Ospreys at Dexcom Stadium in Galway. Photo by Paul Phelan\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Stuart Lancaster said he did everything he could to keep Matthew Devine at Connacht but that ultimately it was the player\u2019s decision to join Ulster in the summer on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Devine, a product of Ballinasloe RFC, Garbally College and the Connacht academy, showed everyone what he is capable of when he came off the bench on Saturday and was the key figure in them fashioning a 21-14 win which keeps them in contention for a knockout place in the URC and a return to the Champions Cup next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Devine of Connacht on his way to scoring his side&#8217;s third try during the United Rugby Championship&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[23199,18,19,17,132,23201],"class_list":["post-411106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports","tag-stuart-lancaster"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116316883468958543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}