Connacht vs Worcester Warriors. 18th Dec. 19:00. The Sportsground.

chupacabra

Connacht:

G Duffy; L Bibo, N Ta’auso, A Wynne, F Carr; I Keatley, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, S Cronin, R Morris; M McCarthy, B Upton; J Muldoon (capt), R Ofisa, G Naoupu.

Replacements: A Flavin, R Loughney, J Hagan, M Swift, M McComish, K Campbell, M Nikora, T Nathan.


Worcester:

15 Chris Pennell
14 Marcel Garvey
13 Alex Grove
12 Calum MacRae
11 Rico Gear
10 Matthew Jones
9 Jonny Arr

1 Adam Black
2 Chris Fortey (c)
3 Olivier Sourgens
4 Graham Kitchener
5 Will Bowley
6 James Collins
7 Jake Abbott
8 Matthew Cox

Replacements
16 Jack Gilding
17 Jordan Page
18 Tevita Taumoepeau
19 David Lyons
20 Tom Wood
21 Ollie Frost
22 Greg King
23 Dale Rasmussen

Not sure if this one is on Galway bay fm but if it is you will find an audio stream at http://www.galwaybayfm.ie/radio/

toomevara

Expect Connacht to build on their excellent work last weekend at Sixways to qualify for the Quarters top of their group.

chupacabra

Thanks for the title update. Forgot i couldn't edit thread titles after they were made. :rolleyes:

thomond2006

Win this and Connacht are heading for a home quarter-final.

Montpellier aren't interested and Madrid are useless.

As long as they keep Rico Gear quiet, Connacht should win tonight.

G'wan Connacht!

Let's hope for a BP win!

PhatPiggins

You'd hope so especially considering Worcester are fielding a largely second team.

I'll be interested to se if that journey man,has been, money grabbing, Irish talent restricting, no talent George Naoupu puts in another impressive shift this week. He was only just pipped for MOTM last week.

Diom

Galway Bay FM has full coverage, and post match interviews with players, staff and fans.


COME ON CONNACHT.

bamboozle

hope there's a big crowd tonight, here's to another clean sweep weekend for our provinces

brianthebard

What did the commentator just say about grabbing nuts???

chupacabra

7 - 0 to Worcester

chupacabra

Keatley kicks a penalty

7 - 3

thomond2006

8-7 to Connacht.

Keatley missed pen.

thomond2006

This HT GAA discussion is so interesting... :pac::pac:

Judgement Day

Do you think they have forgotten the 2nd half.

Judgement Day

A good score - by the sound of it - but there's is a lot of 'rumbling' going on according to the commentator!

foreman1916

good old duffy

toomevara

Score?

foreman1916

16-7 to Connacht

chupacabra

19 - 7 now

Connacht are playing very well, watch out munster and leinster.

thomond2006

Commentators praising Naoupu.

thomond2006

19-7 FT.

Delighted for Connacht, who look likely to host a quarter final in Galway.

They could get a team who finished runners up in a HEC pool!

ScrubsfanChris

thomond2006 wrote: »

19-7 FT.

Delighted for Connacht, who look likely to host a quarter final in Galway.

They could get a team who finished runners up in a HEC pool!

Steady now, they still have to play Madrid away
On another note, Connacht have the least points scored against them than all the other teams in thier pool and have only conceded 3 Tries in their four games.

emc2

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

Steady now, they still have to play Madrid away
On another note, Connacht have the least points scored against them than all the other teams in thier pool and have only conceded 3 Tries in their four games.

Is the Madrid game not at home?

PhatPiggins

thomond2006 wrote: »

Commentators praising Naoupu.

What was it you were saying about him when they signed him?

thomond2006

PhatPiggins wrote: »

What was it you were saying about him when they signed him?

hahaha

I think I said he was a "journeyman" signing.

In my defence, I wasn't the only one..:pac:

ScrubsfanChris

emc2 wrote: »

Is the Madrid game not at home?

No:
http://www.ercrugby.com/eng/268_244.php?includeref=4470&season=2009-2010&round=6

PhatPiggins

thomond2006 wrote: »

hahaha

I think I said he was a "journeyman" signing.

In my defence, I wasn't the only one..:pac:

Fair play for owning up. I did mention on that thread that at a guess 90% of the posters calling him a journeyman had never seen him play.

Zzippy

Back a while from the game and still trying to warm up! F*** me it was cold! Still frost on the pitch and a few snowflakes, but otherwise a great night for a game. Good enough crowd, I'd say 2,500-3,000. Got a spot in beside the Worcester supporters and had great craic with them, nice bunch of lads.
Bad try to give away early on, gap opened up too easily, apart from that they never looked like scoring. Connacht did the basics well but failed to create many clear chances, but dominated possession for most of the game. For me, Duffy, Cronin, Upton, Ofisa and Nauoupo all played well. Murphy was too slow in his delivery all night, too many steps before passing, Keatley did ok from hand and the kicks he missed were pretty tough sideline conversions. Took his drop goal well to seal it.
Looks like this pool will come down to the home game against Montpellier, if we win that it should be a home draw quarter final, and who knows who that could be against...

PhatPiggins

Fair play to you if you guys do top the pool it wasn't an easy group and reallictically you would have been third favs to do so at the start at of the season.

Of course it'll mean that Bradley will go down as the greatest Connacht coach in living history

eyeball kid

Nice win for Connacht. Delighted for them. Now if they could just continue that form in the Magners we'd be sorted!

Zzippy

Zzippy wrote: »

Back a while from the game and still trying to warm up! F*** me it was cold! Still frost on the pitch and a few snowflakes, but otherwise a great night for a game. Good enough crowd, I'd say 2,500-3,000. Got a spot in beside the Worcester supporters and had great craic with them, nice bunch of lads.
Bad try to give away early on, gap opened up too easily, apart from that they never looked like scoring. Connacht did the basics well but failed to create many clear chances, but dominated possession for most of the game. For me, Duffy, Cronin, Upton, Ofisa and Nauoupo all played well. Murphy was too slow in his delivery all night, too many steps before passing, Keatley did ok from hand and the kicks he missed were pretty tough sideline conversions. Took his drop goal well to seal it.
Looks like this pool will come down to the home game against Montpellier, if we win that it should be a home draw quarter final, and who knows who that could be against...

Good points.I don't know was it just me but I feel Frank was quite good tonight,He's always quite slow getting his pass away but I feel in recent weeks since returing to the team he's back to his annoying self around the field and he's cut out the constant use of box kicks that land behind his head:)

emc2

PhatPiggins wrote: »

Of course it'll mean that Bradley will go down as the greatest Connacht coach in living history

On the flipside it might also help us attract a better coach and maybe a few new players....

PhatPiggins

emc2 wrote: »

On the flipside it might also help us attract a better coach and maybe a few new players....

In a perfect world, but I'll put any money on Elwood being the next coach and the IRFU not bringing in a replacement for Elwood just expecting him to cover both roles.

Zzippy

Borders no.2 wrote: »

Good points.I don't know was it just me but I feel Frank was quite good tonight,He's always quite slow getting his pass away but I feel in recent weeks since returing to the team he's back to his annoying self around the field and he's cut out the constant use of box kicks that land behind his head:)

Yeah, I'm probably being a bit harsh on him, but passing is the first and most important role of the scrumhalf, and he slows down a lot of attacks by crabbing sideways a few paces before releasing - like he's looking for the opportunity for a break every time before deciding whether to pass or not - ok keep the opposition 7 honest by making the odd break but you don't have to have a look every single time.
We had a huge overlap late in the second half too, they had one defender covering about 5/6 of our guys, and he took the wrong option, giving it back to the forwards to take in. That was a certain try if he had passed it wide. Ah maybe I'm being overly critical, I just think we could utilise our backs better and put the likes of Carr and Ta'auso in space a lot more if he just got the ball out quicker...

f1dan

Speaking of passing, was it just me or were an awful lot of the passes thrown behind the man they were intended for? It was fairly annoying watching it slow down the momentum a little bit.

Anyway, good to get the win. Duffy was solid as a rock, took everything that came his way.

toomevara

Seems like another good night for Connacht. Building a bit of momentum over there in Galway.

outwest

franks was our worst player, we could of won by more if he wasnt so slow passing the ball, duffy was solid, their try was their only hifghlight. other then that pure domination in terms of possesion.

siltirocker

Couldn't make it last night. Just wondering, did Campbell get a run out?

Dave Joyce

Couldn't post till now as me friggin laptops been fecked. Thought it was a great performance from our lads and they actually looked very confident from the very outset and were not fazed whatsoever by the early Warriors try. Agree with the lads on the individual performances but thought myself while Frank Murphy did feck up a bit at times, he made a couple of very decent breaks.

However,

put the likes of Carr and Ta'auso in space

, don't even mention that flute Ta'asuo. Thought he had a SHI'TE game. He missed a good few tackles (and just stuck out his arm like an out of depth school boy player) and then he died with the ball on at least 2 ocassions when there were players outside especially in the last part of the game inside their 22 and Fionn Carr AND Gavin Duffy outside with a fecking overlap!!!