Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Conor O'Shea is David Nucifora in the RFU. The specifics of the roles might be slightly different but the job title and overall responsibilities are the same.

Thats a salary role similar to a national head coach imo. I doubt that going from that role to head coach of a province would be an attractive move.

Why would he want to? He's in England for years as i said bar the few years in Italy. He is in a similar role to Nucifora and he doesnt seem interested in positions of coaching teams but more is interested in long term roles.

Will be very interesting what pack is picked this weekend, good big of depth there now. I’d go with:

Dooley Heff Bealham Murray Thornbury Prendergast Oliver Boyle with a bench of DTM Buckley Aungier Murphy Butler

In the backs would go with either hawkshaw at 12 or fitz at 15, need that second playmaker option in the backline.

That’s a fair point, but it assumes that we are going to keep the DoR model going forward, which is no guarantee. Lam, Keane and Friend (for the first four years) had no DoR.

My instinct, based on that history, is that we will hire a Head Coach to run the show as before, for financial reasons as much as anything else, but if you are correct and Friend is replaced with another DoR type then it’s a big shift for the club.

You say that a lot but he has a better winning percentage then all previous Connacht coaches. Wilkins as head coach is definitely not the right selection. He's been at the club longer then Friend I think a fresh voice would be needed

I'd love if it was Carolan...but unless he loses every game for the rest of the year it's surely going to be Wilkins.

Lol! Connacht have been poor during Friends tenure. He's been poor. It was a poor appointment. There must be someone in the Irish structure who would do a good job?

He's given the team in better shape he took it

Mentally but not only. Prendergast, Hansen, Hurley, Hawkshaw, both Murray, Forde, Mullins, DTM, Illo are already decent at least but there with us for many years!

Team v Munster

15. John Porch (66)

14. Byron Ralston (6)

13. Tom Farrell (83)

12. Bundee Aki (119)

11. Alex Wootton (37)

10. Jack Carty (184) (C)

9. Caolin Blade (154)

1. Denis Buckley (215)

2. Dave Heffernan (171)

3. Finlay Bealham (173)

4. Josh Murphy (5)

5. Gavin Thornbury (68)

6. Cian Prendergast (33)

7. Conor Oliver (47)

8. Jarrad Butler (100)

Replacements

16. Shane Delahunt (117)

17. Peter Dooley (5)

18. Jack Aungier (38)

19. Niall Murray (40)

20. Oisín Dowling (31)

21. Kieran Marmion (215)

22. Conor Fitzgerald (57)

23. Paul Boyle (79)

Finally get to see Porch at 15 again. Would have liked to see Hawkshaw involved and disappointed to see DTM lose spot in 23, he had performed well enough to hold it. Niall Murray unfortunate not to hold his position.

Impactful bench, stay in it for 60 minutes and anything could happen.

Hopefully we are replacing a coach also

Yes, but all the ex munster players are convinced casey is world class and that's what the media feeds off

Keep targeting Carbery, his decision making and execution is too slow

Criminal from carty

Those pens are just nonsense. He had caught the ball before he had even left the ground.