Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Zeugnis

even our victories involve eating fingernails and calls to cardiology units. Not a good performance, but we endure. Reality is that we will need to find another gear to get the points required for qualification against Treviso, Stormers, and Munster - we're fighting them for our place. Lions will be a challenge as well. Fortunately we'll have Bundee and Mack back for some of those fixtures. Bundee owes us a couple of barnstormers - we see him to do it with great consistency for Ireland of late. Himself and Mack have the magic to get us over the line.

As for today, we made hard work of it. Liked Forde and especially Hawkshaw, Ralston as well. Still not convinced that JJ is maximising the back line.

ElisaAtWar

Wilkins couldn't provide a baby on how to change a nappy. And note it is the parent who is supposed to do that. Wilkins needs to go

conncussed

Watching that was hard work today. Some elements of our game worked reasonably well but we coughed up possession so cheaply at times. The crowd were definitely in the mood for a good game but all the life was sucked out of the stadium by the errors and resulting breaks in play. It was a good day for running rugby for the first 60 minutes and we still struggled.

I remain unconvinced by our attack. When it works we seem to be trying to run some kind of very fluid two phase attack with minimal distance between the lines of attack but the player running the holding inside line isn't fixing the defense often enough. You end up with lots of neat lateral loops and a wing running into space for the cover defense. Forde and Hawkshaw did well to break the line a number of days today but that's against a Scarlets team minus two out haves, two scrum halves, and a fullback. A more agressive connected defense would have shut most of those breaks down.

I worry that when we slot Bundee back in we won't get the best out of him as a result. That's what we saw earlier in the season.

Mack will be a huge additon. He has the ability to carve some mayhem out of any defense.

We'll need to be a lot better against the Lions in three weeks time. They're a better team than the Scarlets and haven't had the disruption of the 6N.

ElisaAtWar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121843985#Comment_121843985

Tom and Tom are in fact the answers. David and Cathal are muck together. And Hawkshaw is by nature a utility player. He is certainly not a starting player.

kita99

No one said about Connacht's atacking maul. Have they been taking to train for it?

Wegians89

Dillane to Munster rumours seem to have died down and with Molony linked to Bath, wonder what will happen with Roux? Could one of the two lads be coming back to replace Thornbury? Josh Murphy is coming back but with Butler and Boyle rumoured to be leaving, he will be needed at 6.

ElisaAtWar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851279#Comment_121851279

Would be an awful shame to see Boyle go. And Butler. And Farrell. And Daly. But then again what reason have they got to stay. This Connacht team is a stagnant mess with scrum halves and out halves that would struggle at AIL level. Why would you want to stick with a team that is clearly going nowhere, under a management team that is totally clueless, and selection processes that are a mystery to all.

I have watched Connacht go thru many a losing streak but these wins fill me with total dread on what is to come

Wegians89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851414#Comment_121851414

Lots of optimism here haha

Personally don’t think any of the lads rumoured to be leaving apart from Farrell will be huge loses when you take into account their wages and contributes recently.

connachta

+ with Jansen, Gavin, SOB X.0, Devine, we need to give these guys gametime, for the best

b.gud

2 year extension for Forde

cson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851414#Comment_121851414

What a bizarre take.

I don't see how you can call this Connacht team a stagnant mess if you've been following the team long enough to remember regularly finishing bottom of the Celtic League and almost defacto last regularly in the Pro 12 only finishing ahead of the Italian teams.

• Last 3 seasons: 20/21 = 3rd overall, 21/22 = 11th overall, 22/23 = 7th overall, won QF. We're likely going to qualify for the playoffs again & I wouldn't be surprised if we made a semi in the Challenge Cup given its Lions/Bennetton if we nick it against Pau.
• New stadium on the way while at the same time getting great crowds - there were over 6k at the game this weekend, I'd say Elwood would have fallen off his chair if you'd told him we'd be getting crowds like that back in 08/09.
• We have 2 of the first names on the Irish team sheet in Bundee Aki & Mack Hansen with Prendergast not going to be too far behind them if I was a betting man. A far cry from when we were lucky to have Gavin Duffy in the extended squad.
• The brand of rugby we play is night & day from the earlier years and is great to watch as a fan. You can see the foundations that Pat Lam laid a decade ago in the EDB try from the week, fantastic offloading rugby.

Now that's not to say there's been missteps, off the top of my head the main ones would be:

• We got the post Pat Lam appointment wrong, Kieran Keane set us back a few years, we probably stuck with Friendy a year too long but he was a great coach for youth development, look at how many came through in his time as well as the masterstroke of bringing Mack over. Jury is still on on Wilkins, but you can't judge him on 1 year.
• Jack's contract was a mistake, we knew what we had with him at that point & you just can't have the kicking percentages he has at this level of the game regardless of what he does in open play. OH has been a problem position for us and that's not going to change until Jack's contract runs out. JJ has been decent and a good option to have.
• I can see the rationale behind moving on from Marmion, Bladey was on the bubble of the Irish squad and playing the best rugby of his career. He's hasn't hit those heights & his decision making just hasn't matured to the level of an elite player.

Overall I don't know how you couldn't think that were going in an overwhelmingly positive direction, and important to point out that its on a fraction of the budget that the other 3 have.

Mr Tickle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853280#Comment_121853280

Is Finlay Bealham a joke to you?

It's a pity Cooney left when he did. particularly since it never really worked out for him in terms of breaking into the Irish team. He has pretty good kicking percentages and would have paired well with Jack. He was always been there or there abouts with Marmion and Blade as a scrumhalf too.

CuriousCucumber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853280#Comment_121853280

Life is much easier if you ignore that poster.

CuriousCucumber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853607#Comment_121853607

Cooney only started working on his kicking after moving to Ulster.

He wasn't as good as Marmion, but it was only marginal. He wanted, and deserved to be a starting 9, so he moved on. It was a pity to lose him, but he was a luxury we couldn't afford

SqueakyKneecap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853640#Comment_121853640

Cooney was always a quality kicker. We wouldn't have used him as an injury crisis outhalf otherwise. They just backed Carty/Ronaldson/O'Leary/Crosbie (not sure they crossed over tbh) more.

conncussed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121851279#Comment_121851279

I don't think that Roux is the type of player that Wilkins wants to recruit. He's an excellent lock but he'd be reasonably expensive and pretty much every second row we have is a mobile player with good hands regardless of size. The one caveat here is that Roux probably wants to move back to Galway eventually.

Dillane's definitely a decent fit but again he'll definitely won't be cheap and we probably have just about enough cover across lock and six. Also, I think Ultan fell out of love with rugby (and possibly Ireland/Galway) for his last season here. He played lots of minutes but he was a shadow of the player from his earlier seasons.

With the stadium project starting this Summer I can see a few financially prudent decisions being taken that reduce our squad size slightly in some positons.

ElisaAtWar

• The brand of rugby we play is night & day from the earlier years and is great to watch as a fan. You can see the foundations that Pat Lam laid a decade ago in the EDB try from the week, fantastic offloading rugby.

Really?

We have a one off offloading policy which is about as brain dead as our out halves and scrum halves seem to be able to manage with the limited brain cells they seem to be sharing.

There is lots of talent in this team which is simply negated by sub standard players in key positions and coaching methodology that is utter rubbish

Dubinusa

Connacht have been gash this season. Really not looking good. Sticking with Blade/ Carty will not achieve much. They probably need to entice Tector out to Galway. JJ is not inspiring either and the team continues to look like they met in the locker rooms. Friend was poor and so far, Wilkins is as bad. For all the work that Nucifora has done as the high cardinal, he's done fairly **** by Connacht. Shyte head coaching appointments! One after the other.

Zeugnis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121854429#Comment_121854429

We need Tector? No offense to CT who is a promising young outhalf, but what has he done that makes you think he can start for us?

I know you're not a Connacht supporter, but it makes me wonder what role you think we play in Irish rugby, and I think you underestimate the level of ambition among the club and its supporters.

CT is currently 5th in the pecking order at Leinster and has played less than 100 mins this season, it's not a sufficient body of work to move to a club where there is an opportunity to start at 10 in the Champions Cup. Let's see if he progresses with further opportunities at Leinster and then we can review thew situation. Until then, send us Harry or Frawley, otherwise, no thanks.

As regards Wilkins and Friend, what is the baseline here? They are achieving a high win rate in terms of Connacht's historic performance levels. Yes, we've played a lot of bad rugby, yes there have been inexplicable selections, yes the squad has been managed sub-optimally, but the Pro12 win in 2016 was an extraordinary event. We're doing ok,. but are we building? My sense is that this season we've been crabbing sideways.

Ironically, my criticism of this management team would be that they don't take enough risks, especially with younger members of the squad, and the suffocate the academy with lack of opportunities. And I think they do that, like they exhaust our LHPs and Ralston, playing them every game, because they are anxious about the negativity when we lose. And they take low-risk options as a result, whereas my view is that our lack of financial might turns us by necessity into truffle hunters, who need to check out a lot of players to find the best. I want more risk.

realhorrorshow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121854429#Comment_121854429

Friend completely turned Connacht rugby around after Lam's disastrous final season and the misery of Keane's tenure. As head coach Wilkins guided us to a URC semi in his first season, this season we are in seventh with 7 wins and 4 losses so far. We're not great to watch and there's a lot of room for improvement but the results have been ok. Europe was not good but the reality is we're a tiny club at that level, think we had the lowest average attendance in the competition.

It depends what your expectations for Connacht are I guess. Personally I would like to see us finishing top 8 regularly over the next few seasons, and hopefully make a decent tilt at silverware when the likes of Illo, Murrays, Prendergast, Devine, Forde, Jennings, Gavin, etc. hit their prime in a few years.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121854730#Comment_121854730

Top 8 is the best that Connacht will achieve. Carty sucks! Blade is not much better. As the smallest province, Connacht are doing OK, I suppose. I thought Friend was a poor appointment as was Keane. I think Wilkins is just as bad.

conncussed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121854429#Comment_121854429

I'd disagree. We effectively rebuilt our coaching ticket and playing style over the Summer. Wilkins replaced Friend. We lost Dewalt Senekal and Mossy Lawlor, with John Muldoon and Scott Fardy, and Mark Sexton all joining the senior coaching team. We've changed how we build our pack, we have a new defensive system, and Mark Sexton is trying to rebuild our attack behind that. There were always going to be teething problems in year one of this. Our one top class signing (Cordero) hasn't played a minute of rugby.

Normally Connacht lose those mid-season games like Cardiff where we don't turn up but we've come away with points. We have seven wins and four losses having played a lot of hard fixtures and a decent run now would leave us in a great league position. We also have a losing bonus point from all but one of our URC losses.

We took a couple of bad beatings in the Champions Cup but frankly most sides struggle against a fully loaded Saracens or Bordeaux.

My only criticisms are:

• I haven't seen enough evidence that our attack will work against top teams.
• I think we've over rotated at times, particularly in the backs. Not necessarily in raw numbers but by not playing many consistent combinations.
• We've been a little bit risk adverse when it comes to our younger players.

I'll be happy if we nail down a Champions Cup place for next season, give a decent account of ourselves in the URC and Challenge Cup knockouts, and get our contracting for next seasons sorted properly. We have the opportunity to be a much better team next season so let's give our coaches and squad time.

cson

I'd also add that out of the 4 URC losses, we should have drawn vs, Edinburgh, should have beaten Leinster and arguably should have beaten Ulster at Christmas too. The only game of ours I think we got away with/robbed was away to the Sharks. The other wins, we've been comfortably the better team but lacking in execution (Cardiff the big one here imo).

There's a few comments here that would lead one to believe that the poster hasn't watched the team much outside of looking at results or watching the odd game.

ShineyShiney

We have come a long way from the bad old days for sure.

Personally I think Friend did a great job of steadying the ship and bringing in some improved squad players.

I'd be concerned that our selection policies and style of play are not great, and while we may be playing a style to beat the teams below us we look like we lack the smarts / composure to beat most of the teams above us.

I'll be happy with the seasons outcome if we are in the top 8, I'm on the fence about our chances

.

Mr Tickle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853640#Comment_121853640

Nah he started doing it at Connacht. Maybe only in his last season there when there was an injury crisis

eagle eye

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853280#Comment_121853280

That's a fine post and the only.thing I'd see differently is that we moved forward and got consistent and this season we seem to be in reverse gear. Nobody is ever happy with regression.

We all want the team to be successful and outside of the half backs I think we have the players to be successful. I'm very concerned that the coaching is poor right now.

Borders no.2

I think comparing Connacht now to 15 / 20 years ago is chalk and cheese. So many positive things have happened during that time in both Connacht and Irish rugby and we have also benefitted from the increased depth in irish rugby.

Go back 15 or 20 years and Leinster and Munster had no depth in a lot of positions and even at that fringe players had no interest in joining Connacht. We've pulled ourselves up gradually to a good level once we got some kind of support to progress. Some good decision making and recruitment at academy level in particular has paid dividends and Connacht has become a viable option for players.

Part of me still appreciates any victory we get as they used to be so rare but we need to judge Connacht against todays standards and to me while the points total to date is OK on paper the overall trajectory worries me.

The best game I thought we played as a whole this season was maybe Glasgow but overall i havent been impressed by us often. We've had patches in games where we've been good but its always just in patches. Even when we win it's not often you'd come away thinking we are going in the right direction.

Of the wins we got, winning the first 3 home games in a world cup year was non negotiable. Glasgow was a good win but we got them at the right time. We made awful hard work of a poor ulster team.

We got away with it against Sharks. Any win in South Africa is a good win but Sharks have tanked completely this season. Munster was effectively an A team and nobody will convince me that Cardiff was anything but a shambles.

Pete Wilkins trying to spin that as good character and we'd have lost it in other seasons ignored the fact that this isnt the old Cardiff. They are in turmoil, it was during the 6 nations and we had an extra man for most of the game. We were two players up for part of the game during which we conceded a try. We fell over the line due to our replacements giving us some impetus and Cardiff running out of steam rather than us figuring things out.

Scarlets again the last evening was poor no matter how they try to spin it. Scarlets lost badly at home to Black Lions recently, were on a long losing streak and the game was during the 6 nations. Thats the level they are at. It should have been a game for us to rack up a big score but even after getting a 19 point headstart we looked clueless for the remainder of the game.

There's been a number of games where I felt we left it behind or bizarre selection decisions cost us. Edinburgh away, Leinster home even Ulster away were frustrating nights.

The team picked for Lyon away was a joke following on from a similarly bizarre selection policy that cost us hugely against Newcastle last season. Bristol imploding got us in to the challenge cup by luck.

We are still in a position to hopefully make top 8 which would be a decent season even allowing for it being a world cup year but id be worried by what ive seen throughout the season and especially in the last two weeks. We'll take some bad beatings in the tail end of the season if our current form doesn't pick up significantly.

CuriousCucumber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855235#Comment_121855235

Ok, I agree you're right, but dont want to get into semantics, but he kicked in his last season with Connacht, to the same extent Tom Daly has kicked with Connacht, or Conor Murray has done with Munster.

Only when Cooney moved to Ulster, did it become an important attribute for him

KBurke85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121854987#Comment_121854987

Thats the second time you've mentioned the head coaching appointments have been poor but you have yet to say why

cson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855252#Comment_121855252

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121855328#Comment_121855328

Fair points from ye both.

I do think we'll make URC playoffs again this year, could definitely win a QF again so long as we avoid Leinster and the Stormers. In that context I think that's a solid level of consistent performance from Connacht, particularly when you weigh it against respective budgets. My comparatives to 15 years ago are moreso from a perspective of how far the rugby club has come from almost being folded, to perennial last place finishers to now a place where the expectations are to be competing at the business end of the season. That's absolutely a good thing.

As far as Wilkins, I'm very much inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in his first full year of control, along with more or less a new backroom team - I also have sympathy that he's had to juggle the backs a ton this year due to Cordero getting injured which means we had to dog TOH & to add to that, Mack being out for the period he has been exacerbates that further. Very hard to build fluency when you're constantly chopping and changing like that. I think there's a ton to be positive about this season and lots to be hopeful about next season - I think a lot more people will have a positive opinion on Pete Wilkins by the end of 24/25.