Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

SqueakyKneecap

It's hard to believe a great win away at Leinster in Jan happened with the nearly the same squad from the last month.

lenny4545

SqueakyKneecap wrote: »

It's hard to believe a great win away at Leinster in Jan happened with the nearly the same squad from the last month.

Don't get me wrong it was great to get a win away to Leinster, but that was nowhere near a full strength Leinster team! League placing and a one off win against a second string Leinster team are papering over major cracks! There is no way a team with only a 50% win ratio should be finishing second!

Utopia Parkway

Paul Boyle was superb though it must be said.

Borders no.2

I think at this stage we need to ask big questions about where Connacht are heading. We play some outstanding stuff and then casually gift needless scores more often than not through no great play by the opposition.

12 points conceded while up a man in the first half. Multiple times seem to be getting a foothold and contrive to give Leicester control again. Just so many games this year with poor leadership and decision making

Some examples, there are countless others:
Bristol at home, twice off penalties stupidly go for a try when a kick in front of the posts gets the same return points wise
Munster at home v 13. Clueless attacking strategy off the final scrum.
Ospreys at home, 12 point half time lead thrown away in no time
Edinburgh at home, countless opportunities to close the game down, concede a try under the posts in last play
Scarlets away, 21 point lead thrown away and need a late kick to even get a losing bp

We've played the majority of games this season against 2nd string sides. For all the good play we've had and all the tries we've scored, we've won 8 out of 19 games. The bonus points racked up against the bad teams made the table look better but for me its been a poor season.

Individually you can go through players and there's loads of players that have looked good a lot of the time this season but as a unit particularly defensively, its embarrassing the ease with which we concede tries.

When I see the make up of the coaching staff for next season I despair for where we are heading. If I was one of the top players at Connacht I'd be asking my agent to get on the phone to other teams. If we don't have the ability to sign 1 or 2 good quality players who have experience to improve the group then we need to make up for that deficit of experience with good coaching and while attacking wise we are a joy to watch sometimes, up front we are consistently beaten up and defensively our lack of structure is alarming.

Utopia Parkway

lenny4545 wrote: »

Don't get me wrong it was great to get a win away to Leinster, but that was nowhere near a full strength Leinster team! League placing and a one off win against a second string Leinster team are papering over major cracks! There is no way a team with only a 50% win ratio should be finishing second!

Put the two conferences together and they finished 4th but there was a big gap between 3rd and 4th.

Burkie1203

lenny4545 wrote: »

There is no way a team with only a 50% win ratio should be finishing second!

Bonus point and conference system does this

Connacht need to develop a solid defensive system and be a bit more pragmatic

connachta

Heff, 2nd row, Boyle, partly Masterson, Daly SOB were good
SHs did not much wrong, Porch and Wootton neither
The rest not up to the level.

Half a brillant team scores, but conceed more.
We're now used to it.

testtech05

connachta wrote: »

Heff, 2nd row, Boyle, partly Masterson, Daly SOB were good
SHs did not much wrong, Porch and Wootton neither
The rest not up to the level.

Half a brillant team scores, but conceed more.
We're now used to it.

I thought it was one of Porchs poorest games for a long while that I can remember. After a great season from him unfortunate timing.

Also thought blade made quite a few mistakes/wrong decisions but we were chasing the game at that stage.

lenny4545

connachta wrote: »

Heff, 2nd row, Boyle, partly Masterson, Daly SOB were good
SHs did not much wrong, Porch and Wootton neither
The rest not up to the level.

Half a brillant team scores, but conceed more.
We're now used to it.

I thought heff was poor! Not for the first time he was beaten as pillar defender! Would start delahunt everytime! Boyle was immense as usual and thought it was good to see him complaining to ref about amount of penalties...shows he is growing into the captain role! We have such a good defensive lineout I don't get why we don't compete at every lineout especially considering how bad our maul defence is! Also think SOB worth a new contract after last couple of games!

connachta

testtech05 wrote: »

I thought it was one of Porchs poorest games for a long while that I can remember. After a great season from him unfortunate timing.

Also thought blade made quite a few mistakes/wrong decisions but we were chasing the game at that stage.

Ball in hands Porch did reasonably well under pressure.
Missed only one catch IIRC.
Don't say he was good, but not bad I thought...

Utopia Parkway

Been impressed with SOB the last couple games. Well able to take on his man on the outside and beat him and good awareness with ball in hand.

Was that the Wiese we were linked with from the Cheetahs? If so was a real pity to miss out on him. Can carry like Big Papi except he's also got an engine on him to play 80 minutes.

lenny4545

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Been impressed with SOB the last couple games. Well able to take on his man on the outside and beat him and good awareness with ball in hand.

Was that the Wiese we were linked with from the Cheetahs? If so was a real pity to miss out on him. Can carry like Big Papi except he's also got an engine on him to play 80 minutes.

Ya same weise! In fairness you can see why he turned down Connacht!

Dubinusa

Friend isn't cutting it.

Utopia Parkway

lenny4545 wrote: »

Ya same weise! In fairness you can see why he turned down Connacht!

Leicester likely offered quite a bit more money.

ElisaAtWar

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Been impressed with SOB the last couple games. Well able to take on his man on the outside and beat him and good awareness with ball in hand.

Was that the Wiese we were linked with from the Cheetahs? If so was a real pity to miss out on him. Can carry like Big Papi except he's also got an engine on him to play 80 minutes.

Agreed. This game should have been a slam dunk but it was utter pants instead. If you can't just kill a game like that well your coaching sucks. Simples. A third rate Leicester team. But I do believe it's time for Buckley to hang up his boots. He offers nothing

lenny4545

Dubinusa wrote: »

Friend isn't cutting it.

Happy with Friend tbh, it's a pity to lose Carolan, Wilkins is very lucky to be kept on!

ElisaAtWar

I said it before the game. That win was a given. How that was so screwed up was impressive

lenny4545

ElisaAtWar wrote: »

I said it before the game. That win was a given. How that was so screwed up was impressive

No such thing as a given win with connacht! Christ last week we had 21 point lead at half time vs Scarlets and lost! We could be playing an under 8s team in England and lose!

ElisaAtWar

It's important to understand how absolutely messed up that performance was. There is no leadership, there are no constants. It's just children playing around. It's embarrassing

connachta

messy, no defence, no power, no rucks

but good indivudals

Why? Don't really know

Bundee is not the only reason

ElisaAtWar

connachta wrote: »

messy, no defence, no power, no rucks

but good indivudals

Why? Don't really know

Bundee is not the only reason

Bundee isn't a team player. Never was.

Dubinusa

The players are not performing. That's on Friend. Carolyn should be given the reins. Friend is not up to it.

pappyodaniel

After Munster today I decided to jump ship but after that I changed my mind....
Lads

It must be hard going following that shower

RonnieL

I heard Peter Wilkins on the craggy rugby podcast talking about how the defensive issues weren't system failures. The system might be good in theory, but if our players can't implement it (and they've clearly failed to so far), then I would argue it is definitely a system issue. Since our complex attack seems to be working, maybe it's time to simplify things in defence.

On the plus side, O'Brien was good.

connemara man

We need a Shaun Edwards type voice in there.

Someone that can install an edge in Defence that we are missing. And that will just have the workrate skyrocket.

connachta

Saffers are the best thing could happen to Connacht
We're unable to gain the tryline from 5 meters out
Vs big beasts, we will have no choice than muscling our game, will happen fast

gally74

lots of ranting here,

Leicester are a good team,

Lots of players are progressing well, the loss of the coaches is probalby budget related,

yes were not the finsihed article, but in lots of ways were doing good,

biggest moan from me is that we arent progressing the devlopment with the 20M that was recieved, with the sportground empty, it was an ideal time to get the pitch over to 4G, I can onyl assume that the IRFU stalled it, but its unfair,

Wegians89

Think the coaching change up could be a great thing. Some of the players have been working with Carolan and Duffy from underage to now and the games of voices could be very important. The likes of Buckley and Bealham seem to have started to regress and having to prove yourself to a new coaching ticket might spark their form again

Former Former Former

gally74 wrote: »

biggest moan from me is that we arent progressing the devlopment with the 20M that was recieved, with the sportground empty, it was an ideal time to get the pitch over to 4G, I can onyl assume that the IRFU stalled it, but its unfair

Lol. The money was announced a month before the world shut down, the government is borrowing billions every month just to keep the lights on, the IRFU had to impose savage salary cuts, construction has been closed for months... But you're right, I think anti Connacht bias is the real tragedy here.

its_phil

All the locks have been great this season, but jeez we’re missing Quinn at the moment.

A big fit lump is badly needed. Our back five in pack last night gave a lot and very athletic but the balance is off.