Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Connacht were very poor for the restarts

Might be time to let Carty go - too many mistakes and poor goal kicking

He needs to be taken off kicking duty immediately.

In the space of 6 minutes in the second half today, he missed a relatively easy conversion, missed touch with a penalty, and then put the ball out on the full.

He's not good enough. I doubt any professional team, bar Connacht would start him, yet he's our top ever points scorer.

Apart from one good season in 2018/2019, he's added no value to the team

We're stuck with Carty sadly. He has a decent money deal signed till 2025. That was a poor decision in all honesty from Ruane and higher ups that we'll have to live with.

JJ is definitely the better option now. Even Hawkshaw to me offers more than Carty.

Poor result but after trailing and in hindsight when looking at both teams and who we were missing, a LBP might not be the worst. Imperative we get at least 1 win in SA now though.

Anyway, I've seen nothing about Porch's injury? With the towel covering my immediate thought was some kind of bad burn? But with him sucking on the gas it must have been worse. Other thing I was thinking was maybe knee dislocation? Again another bizarre decision to punish him for that collision.

And who did Schoeman throw the swing at before half time? Read it on Twitter but missed it in real time.

Connacht would have taken that beforehand but will be sickened given how the game panned out.

Carty just isn't reliable whatsoever. You can hav a solid 70mins but if you completely collapse for the other 10 minutes which ultimately results in key scores for the opposition, your place should be in jeopardy. His errors were listed above but I'd add him dropping a kick unchallenged and failing to get outside of his 22 with a clearing kick. All in 10 minutes. It was a collapse.

JJH looked every bit as good in attack at outhalf in the closing stages and build up to the Prendergast try. Surely Carty needs to be benched at this stage.

I thought Aungier was excellent. Really got under Schoeman's skin and held his own at the set piece. Thought Schoeman was lucky not to have the handbags looked at when Aungier held him at the back of the maul. Looked to have made contact with Aungier's face when he lashed out.

The scrum collapsed when Illo came on. He was great around the park, smashing rucks and hitting anything that moved but the scrum was a bit of a disaster. If he can't sort that out, he'll struggle.

Prendergast was excellent again. A really dynamic and physical showing. Will he some battle next year for the blindside spot when POM retires.

Healy will get plaudits for the drop goal as he should (more for calling for it and not hiding than the actual execution; a prop could have tapped that over) but his overall performance was fairly mediocre again. Another charge down and he was generally quiet. Missed a couple of kicks which has been his strength of late and the Joyce and Prendergast tries both went through him on the line. Performance was certainly an improvement on last week from him though. We're missing absolutely nothing from an Irish perspective.

Was a very costly error and not a difficult one to take either. Murray can't make those errors and expect to be in an Irish squad. He was the man stripped by the Edinburgh scrum half too for the opening try.

what's the story with Dave Heff this weather? Not a sign of him to date

To me it looked like they shifted Carty to 15 when JJ came on. When chasing a game Carty probably has a better skill set than TOH.

I’d like to see more of Carty at 15 with the amount of injuries at 15

Is Jennings an option at 15?

He's been decent on the wing in his couple of outings imo

Jennings is with the Sevens program at present

Out injured

I remember it became very noticeable at the start of Friend's time. I think he was doing something weird like having forwards lift backs. It felt like a 7's thing but maybe that's just how i justified everything weird that he did.

It got sorted after a few months but it's really come back again this season.

Included in the squad heading to South Africa this week https://www.connachtrugby.ie/news/travelling-squad-to-south-africa-named/bp2784/

All said and done, and I am glad these guys are available, I think what Borders No2 said is just bang on. The game against Edinburgh was there to be had if you put out your starting 15. So it was a total crazy call and I hope we don't pay for it later in the season

couldn't agree more. but then there is rotation and just being silly

Sharks are a totally different animal at home so if Connacht get anything out of this game they will be doing well.