Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

A family member of a matchday squad player today

For his own good yes

Anyway the pack needs beef it was obvious today

Tuimauga'a and Fifita'a at least on the bench for Leicester

Boyle may be ok?

One of Aki/Robb/Daly, Arnold is rolled-back often

Bealham will be in it too

Farrell finaly let's hope

Hansen is a plus, but we have great talents in this back-3, McNulty baffled me

Hard to gauge the Papali'i news if that washes out. Professional game and is obviously entitled to make the best decisions on a short career but if we had been interested in retaining (and who knows behind the scenes what the relative contracts are) who have liked to have thought we earned some loyalty sticking with him despite calls to get rid and working with him heavily on his fitness and tackling. Hopefully he stays but if he doesn't we are back to the original problem of having excellent backrows but missing the option of a heavy contact ball carrier

Game wise, delighted by the performance of our props, some struggles against a heavy pack but they all were solid today, particularly Duggan who took the opportunity presented by Burkes head knock (and lets hope that is as minor as it can be) to really put his hand up.

Particularly though I thought Dowling has a great game. I saw in the 42 afterwards he was the lineout leader and that was a Thornbury-esque level of perfection in leading the lineout today. Helped by Delahunt having a great day with his darts but we consistently threw into the right areas today and disrupted their lineout well, Murray is a real menace front of lineout in particular.

Arnold has been playing great rugby this season, he will be missed

It's more a case of his disciplinary record being a massive liability and they don't feel they've made enough improvements on his technique to be able to take a calculated risk. But that isn't to say we wouldn't have been outbid anyways for a contract. No bad blood from either party apparently, just hasn't worked out unfortunately.

Also he hates cold weather, that was very clear, and I'd imagine his wife wanted a move to south of Francce ASAP.

No issue with papilli going, a bit part player for us without the level of fitness required to play more than 40 effectively

Funny you mention that. At the game yesterday he seemed to be adding layers of clothes each time I looked at him!

Any source that he's being bought out of his contract?

All I found was a mention of considering following Arnold to Brive next season.

Bundee likely to be fit, Hansen will likely miss the game

Yea it will take a long time to get used to this format if it stays. Playing teams that don't have to play each other and probably going up against totally different teams for the top 8 takes away a lot of the edge I think.

Like playing Stade and Leicester who play Bristol amd Bordeaux all to be left fighting it out with Quins and Wasps (For example) for a place in the top 8 doesn't give familiarity any opportunity to breed contempt. Even in the NFL you have your 6 division games every year. When there's so many teams in the pool/group/conference whatever there's really no point looking at the table until after round 3 as there's so many variables, whereas otherwise you'd be looking at the other result and thinking bonus point/ need a win or whatever next week

Hopefully they don't reschedule the Leinster game. 3 interpros in a row followed by two more weeks in Europe would be tough going.

Looks like dowling, Duggan and burke all d say our training today. New loose head could be thrown in for a start