Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Bolton out for 4-6 weeks. Injured his ankle falling after that head on head collision v Cardiff. Jennings and Reilly back training but not available this week.

Probably, Ralston is obviously very highly rated, he's played every minute he's been available for this season. The fact that he hasn't scored a try in those 870 mins of rugby concerns me.

It's a shame Bolton has taken another injury just as it looked like he had his body in order.

I'd expect Ralston to come straight back in on the wing or at 13.

Scarlets have eight in the Welsh squad including Gareth Davies, Kieran Hardy, Sam Costelow and Ioan Lloyd. With Johnny McNichol still out injured they'll be facing us with their third choice scrum half, third choice outhalf, and third choice fullback unless Gatland releases a player or two.

If the Farrell leaving rumours are true I’d expect Ralston to be first choice 13 for the rest of the season. Could see Kilgallen come back in for Bolton this week and Hawkshaw on the bench in a 6-2 split.

Forum chatter / certain Twitter accounts

Thanks. Bit of a risk to let our best player in any position go, but if the budget is tight it makes sense to release higher earners and fill the gaps from the academy.

I think every centre at the club apart from Farrell is more of a 12, but we'll have to shift a couple to 13 to get everyone gametime. Hawkshaw has the headstart, Gavin has the athleticism, Devine has the defensive intelligence and handling. I wouldn't sleep on Devine, only two weeks older than Gavin, and arguably a more rounded footballer. Only downside is he's not a particularly standout athlete and it's hard to see how he's going to progress only playing AIL 2B.

Feel like Devine will be a slow burner given the size of him. Even the likes of Hawkshaw who would be a similar height looks a good bit more powerful. Can see Ralston, Gavin and Hawkshaw Battling it out for 13 next year.

I'm not a coaching or video analysis expert but all I see are lots of neat passes, Carty not having opportunities to identify space, one of the best inside centres in world rugby not getting dominant carries against weak shoulders with support runners, and very few examples of an outside centre hitting hard lines. Blade is overplaying too because he tends to take on responsibility when we're not generating space to attack.

I'm sure Mark Sexton and Wilkins have a grand plan for the attack but I worry about how we're going to see it when we have rarely fielded a consistent selection of backs all season.

I assumed he wasn’t included last weekend as they wanted to cap Jager and Finlay has a newborn. Made sense to let him home for the weekend last week. Then also made sense for him to get a bit of game time before being back on the bench for the England match.

Email there said there'll be 5.5k at the game (assuming based on sales so far) which would make it our biggest crowd of the year outside of Munster & Leinster.

5 points is definitely needed. Even though we got the 4 last week we still dropped a place. Very tight.

Would like to see Jansen come in at 8 this week with Prendergast and SHL. I'd start Carty too with maybe Reilly or McDonald and drop Blade. Would like to see Dowling and N Murray start in the row.

I'd be very surprised if we see more of Matthew Devine this season unless it's as a substitute when a game no longer matters. He's had five minutes of senior rugby in total and was only brought on to replace McDonald (3rd choice) when the Lyon game was done. If two of Blade, Reilly, and McDonald are fit he'll probably be working towards being an option for next season.

I haven't been keeping track of his AIL game time over the last couple of years but it looks like injuries (and perhaps lost gym development time as a result) have delayed his progress by a couple of seasons. He looked brilliant at U20 but the leap to senior isn't easy or automatic.

Ireland have confirmed that Oli Jager has a knee issue and didn't train today. Explains why Finlay returned even if some of the comms around it weren't exactly clear.

de Buitléar starting is a bit random, but always happy to see a young homegrown guy get a shot. Presume he's been training well. From what I've seen of him thus far, he's extremely powerful in contact but needs some work on his throwing. With that in mind, I wonder if we've gone with Thornbury over Joyce in order to shore up the lineout, with such a young hooker starting. Excited to get another look at Jansen, loads of impact to come off the bench too. Backline very much as expected, looks like we're succession planning at 13.

There are few decent players in the Scarlets side but but we should be comfortably better than them:

Scarlets: Ioan Nicholas; Tomi Lewis, Johnny Williams, Eddie James; Steff Evans; Dan Jones, Efan Jones; Wyn Jones, Shaun Evans, Sam Wainwright, Alex Craig, Jac Price, Sam Lousi (capt), Dan Davis, Vaea Fifita.

Replacements: Eduan Swart, Steff Thomas, Joe Jones, Morgan Jones, Ben Williams, Archie Hughes, Charlie Titcombe, Ryan Conbeer.