Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

connemara man

Also Cardiff were at sillybuggers with the gap all game so when it went against them I'm Ok with it

Bazzo

Bazzo wrote: »

I don't think you can label him inconsistent for a kick dead and a missed penalty unless you also want to label Sexton, Burns and basically every outhalf playing the game inconsistent.

Hes not really inconsistent, his general play is perfectly fine but he has a tendency to make at least one, if not more cardinal errors from the boot.

In this game he kicked a restart dead and then missed touch with an easy penalty near the end when he completely scuffed it.

You can get away with those errors in the club game but if you're talking about Grand Slams and competiting at WCs against the NZs, you can't have a few of those errors per game.

I dont think theres much talk about Jack as our starting 10, or his ability to start at 10 for another top club.. but those errors just make him another contender for Ireland along with the rest of the pretenders to the throne.

The kick that Burns missed, is a similar kind of error that Carty is prone to make.
Having said that, I'd have had him ahead of Burns before that game anyway.

realhorrorshow

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Number 137 wrote: »

Just on jumping across the lineout, that in itself is not illegal. What is illegal is if you make contact with another player in the air, or if you land in an offside position and then have a material effect on play. Jumping across the lineout itself is fine.

Huh, TIL, cheers. Also learned that I've technically been offside all these years when I've been defending the channel after a maul has been formed.

Zzippy

connemara man wrote: »

The ball is straight Masterson turns mid air so it looks worse than it is.
If one wanted to get into stuff like that look at the maul for the Cardiff first try the lifters step across the gap with payer still in the air but we didn't contest. Swings and roundabouts

there's a lot of outcome based reffing happening to try and keep a game flowing as otherwise the ref would be blowing every 2 seconds they contest its a pen they don't contest there's no material impact in the lineout

Absoluitely, I had seen some whinging from Cardiff fans on Twitter specifically referencing that try, and IMO the l/o was dodgy, but it was immaterial as Cardiff didn't contest and waited to attack the maul.

Lost Ormond wrote: »

The lineout wasnt dodgy. There was no affect on the contest for possession. If Cardiff had jumped and contested you would penalise it but dont see why you should call it

You've just said the lineout wasn't dodgy but if Cardiff had contested it you would penalise it. Something can be dodgy but still immaterial. We got away with it because Cardiff didn't jump, and therefore it was immaterial. A lot of refs would penalise it though.

Lost Ormond

Zzippy wrote: »

Absoluitely, I had seen some whinging from Cardiff fans on Twitter specifically referencing that try, and IMO the l/o was dodgy, but it was immaterial as Cardiff didn't contest and waited to attack the maul.


You've just said the lineout wasn't dodgy but if Cardiff had contested it you would penalise it. Something can be dodgy but still immaterial. We got away with it because Cardiff didn't jump, and therefore it was immaterial. A lot of refs would penalise it though.

A lot wouldnt if the opposition didnt contest. A lineout throw thats crooked is immaterial if the opposition have very little chance of winning the ball because theyve stayed on the ground. It wasnt dodgy at all.

There would be loads of whinging from many of those Cardiff fans regardless of wat happened.

ShineyShiney

Great result, 5pts just what was needed.

On another night our failure to score when on top in the opening period of the second half would come back to hurt us. Those reffing decisions went our way, we all know that wheather they are the right calls or not they often go against us.

Great to see Papali score, been a tough year on him. A repeat next week in Italy would be nice.

connachta

ShineyShiney wrote: »

Great result, 5pts just what was needed.

On another night our failure to score when on top in the opening period of the second half would come back to hurt us. Those reffing decisions went our way, we all know that wheather they are the right calls or not they often go against us.

Great to see Papali score, been a tough year on him. A repeat next week in Italy would be nice.

SOB and Big Papa should start next week to add ball-carrying abilities vs Italians

FACECUTTR

connachta wrote: »

SOB and Big Papa should start next week to add ball-carrying abilities vs Italians

SOB 6, Boyle 7 and Papalii 8 would be fairly abrasive as a back row. More than likely be Butler at 7 though and Papalii @20.

ClanofLams

Papalii off the bench for the season makes a lot of sense. Minimises the risk of a third red and a very lengthy ban & he will cause carnage against tiring defences.

Hopefully next season his technique will have improved and he can start games.

Tommybojangles

I'd agree I don't want Papa anywhere near the starting team for the time being. Last week was encouraging though ��������

You have to factor in there is a chance of a red card or sin bin and if that happens then suddenly It becomes a tricky assignment

realhorrorshow

ClanofLams wrote: »

Papalii off the bench for the season makes a lot of sense. Minimises the risk of a third red and a very lengthy ban & he will cause carnage against tiring defences.

Hopefully next season his technique will have improved and he can start games.

I guess at some point we need to find out if he has a good 50-60 minutes in him and no better time than against the worst team in the league.

Bazzo

realhorrorshow wrote: »

I guess at some point we need to find out if he has a good 50-60 minutes in him and no better time than against the worst team in the league.

I think we found out a couple of weeks ago when he started against Dragons (who are not far off the worst team in the league). He was completely gassed by 50' despite getting an extended half time break to allow a prop to come on during the yellow.

realhorrorshow

Bazzo wrote: »

I think we found out a couple of weeks ago when he started against Dragons (who are not far off the worst team in the league). He was completely gassed by 50' despite getting an extended half time break to allow a prop to come on during the yellow.

I'm hoping that was partly due to a lack of match fitness after his suspension, hopefully he can build up to at the very least getting though 50 good minutes.

ClanofLams

Would guess he wasn’t costing massive money to say the least so if he’s not looking for a big upgrade contract wise, which seems unlikely, would be happy to keep him for next season without him resolving stamina questions.

Worst case scenario stamina doesn’t improve and he’s still a very useful bench option, albeit admittedly unless you go with 6-2 split there will at some stage be an early back row injury which causes him to come on after fifteen.

Presumably Connacht have a fair idea if his conditioning is improving in any case.

connachta

ClanofLams wrote: »

Would guess he wasn’t costing massive money to say the least so if he’s not looking for a big upgrade contract wise, which seems unlikely, would be happy to keep him for next season without him resolving stamina questions.

Worst case scenario stamina doesn’t improve and he’s still a very useful bench option, albeit admittedly unless you go with 6-2 split there will at some stage be an early back row injury which causes him to come on after fifteen.

Presumably Connacht have a fair idea if his conditioning is improving in any case.

+ many players have overall 800 min of rugby per season sarting 10-12 games

Big papa can very well play the same as a specialised impact player, playing 25 min overall off the bench (+1 or 2 early injury replacement), 18-20 games a season...

thomond2006

ClanofLams wrote: »

Would guess he wasn’t costing massive money to say the least so if he’s not looking for a big upgrade contract wise, which seems unlikely, would be happy to keep him for next season without him resolving stamina questions.

Worst case scenario stamina doesn’t improve and he’s still a very useful bench option, albeit admittedly unless you go with 6-2 split there will at some stage be an early back row injury which causes him to come on after fifteen.

Presumably Connacht have a fair idea if his conditioning is improving in any case.

I don't see how you can retain him unless he sorts out his conditioning and more importantly his tackling technique. There's also the fact that he's a NIE player.

Bazzo

thomond2006 wrote: »

I don't see how you can retain him unless he sorts out his conditioning and more importantly his tackling technique. There's also the fact that he's a NIE player.

The fact is that Connacht won't be able to buy in a complete player that brings what be brings. Especially not now. They have to bring in a flawed player, work to improve him, and hope that it works and loyalty lets you hold on to them for a while.

The upside of Papali'i is big enough that I think he's worth the gamble. His tackling technique has already markedly improved.

serfboard

ShineyShiney wrote: »

Great to see Papali score, been a tough year on him.

Was it just my imagination, or did his fellow players look especially happy that he scored? I mean, I know it gave us the bonus point and they were probably happy about that, but they seemed to me to want to really re-affirm it.

serfboard

serfboard wrote: »

Was it just my imagination, or did his fellow players look especially happy that he scored? I mean, I know it gave us the bonus point and they were probably happy about that, but they seemed to me to want to really re-affirm it.

I was thinking the same myself when watching the highlights this morning.

connachta

https://twitter.com/the2ndRow/status/1363541789613907968


Duggan on one side, Aungier on the other, Murray/Prendergast behind, Boyle,... Can't see Connacht disbanded with such a pack for the next 10 years...

Utopia Parkway

serfboard wrote: »

Was it just my imagination, or did his fellow players look especially happy that he scored? I mean, I know it gave us the bonus point and they were probably happy about that, but they seemed to me to want to really re-affirm it.

Probably been a tough enough transition for him to be fair. Sent off a couple of times. On the other side of the word from home. In the middle of a pandemic where you can't really do much or go anywhere. Weather has been terrible to top it all off. For a player just arrived from the southern hemisphere I imagine it must fairly grim at times. Hopefully things improve a lot as the months go by this year.

Tommybojangles

serfboard wrote: »

Was it just my imagination, or did his fellow players look especially happy that he scored? I mean, I know it gave us the bonus point and they were probably happy about that, but they seemed to me to want to really re-affirm it.

I definitely thought so. I've seen us score plenty of bonus points tries but there was something a bit different about Jack's leap especially. Great to see that kind of team spirit

realhorrorshow

connachta wrote: »

https://twitter.com/the2ndRow/status/1363541789613907968


Duggan on one side, Aungier on the other, Murray/Prendergast behind, Boyle,... Can't see Connacht disbanded with such a pack for the next 10 years...

Duggan's scrummaging really impressed me, Dimitri Arhip is no mug but he handled him extremely comfortably.

RonnieL

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Probably been a tough enough transition for him to be fair. Sent off a couple of times. On the other side of the word from home. In the middle of a pandemic where you can't really do much or go anywhere. Weather has been terrible to top it all off. For a player just arrived from the southern hemisphere I imagine it must fairly grim at times. Hopefully things improve a lot as the months go by this year.

Was about to make the same point earlier. Everything you said, plus the unfortunate timing (for him) of the clamp down on the type of tackles he's presumably been doing his entire rugby playing life. PLUS having to isolate that time because of the covid case in the back row. When you sum it all up, you can understand exactly why the rest of the squad were so happy to see him get some redemption.

At this point, I'd be happy for him to continue his bench role for the moment, while he keeps working on his tackling and conditioning. As Nigel spoke about recently, with our budget we've got to take the odd punt on a rough diamond.

connachta

Changes to expect but not that many according to P.W

I'd go with
(assumin none of aki dillane and heffernan are released)

buck
delahunt
bealham
dowling
thornbury
boyle
butler
big papa
marms
carty
daly
sob 2.0
healy
wootton
porch

duggan
murphy
aungier
n.murray
sob 1.0
blade
c.fitz
sullivan rather than toh, to cover centre

realhorrorshow

Is GSOB fit? Would be harsh on Oliver to miss out two weeks in a row, he's been one of our best players this year.

connachta

realhorrorshow wrote: »

Is GSOB fit? Would be harsh on Oliver to miss out two weeks in a row, he's been one of our best players this year.

He did not look really injured after Munster A

He adds more beef vs Italians IMO.

I'd have faster 7 like oliver vs Scarlets for example

connachta

So avoid Bath and round of 16 is very doable should we be home (at least home-ref)

its_phil

connachta wrote: »

So avoid Bath and round of 16 is very doable should we be home (at least home-ref)

How did you read that list and decide Bath were the hardest? They are the best possible draw of English teams left.

connachta

its_phil wrote: »

How did you read that list and decide Bath were the hardest? They are the best possible draw of English teams left.

that's clearly nonsense.
Not only based on the last 10 years but also on final phases this autumn, Bath is the only team above Connacht on that list, with Montpellier struggling.

We should go to win that!