{"id":262496,"date":"2026-01-25T01:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/262496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T01:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:03:12","slug":"much-to-admire-as-leinster-spoil-opening-day-at-dexcom-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/262496\/","title":{"rendered":"Much to admire as Leinster spoil opening day at Dexcom Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Connacht 23 Leinster 34\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Leinster form a huddle in front of the Clan Stand at Connacht's Dexcom Stadium. Photo: Brendan Moran \/ Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Sports3327656.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)\">Leinster form a huddle in front of the Clan Stand at Connacht&#8217;s Dexcom Stadium. Photo: Brendan Moran \/ 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)\">The queue for the Clan Stand forms long before the gates are due to open, two hours prior to kick-off. The man standing proudly at the front declares: \u201cThis is like Christmas for us Connacht fans.\u201d<\/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)\">The woman down on College Road tells us she was part of the march on Lansdowne Road that helped save her province from extinction 23 years ago almost to the day. The raw emotion writ large on her face: \u201cThat\u2019s how far we have come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connacht 23 Leinster 34 Leinster form a huddle in front of the Clan Stand at Connacht&#8217;s Dexcom Stadium.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13503,28454,42,11287,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-262496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-cian-tracey","9":"tag-connacht-rugby","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-leinster-rugby","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}