Connacht V Aironi Fri 11th March ' 19.35 SPortsground Live on TG4

seanin4711

Watched Aironi against Ulster and the went to the final minute trying their utmost to get a losing bonus point (if we played as well in ravenhill I would have had no complaints!).
These Italian teams are improving week on week,co complacency is not an option(re: Treviso).
Finger out bigtime and prove that we are worth our best ever finish in the Magners League!
Heres hoping!!!

SparKing

Well if Aironi don't target this (and the return fixture) bigtime, I'll be amazed.
Can't understand this being on TV, it takes people away from the Sportsground and I'd love to see the viewing figures after, especially since it's on TG4.
This will be a tough match, they're not Cavalieri Prato.

fatguy2k1

SparKing wrote: »

Well if Aironi don't target this (and the return fixture) bigtime, I'll be amazed.
Can't understand this being on TV, it takes people away from the Sportsground and I'd love to see the viewing figures after, especially since it's on TG4.
This will be a tough match, they're not Cavalieri Prato.

it's the only magners league game on this weekend so of course they are going to televise this match.

Zzippy

Realistically, if we can beat Treviso like we did last week (should have been a 5 pointer IMO) then we should be looking at 5 points against Aironi. They will be missing a few players with the Italian squad, we will just be missing Cronin. We're on a good run at the moment at home, confidence is up and the team are playing nice rugby, as long as they do the basics right and keep playing the way they are this should be a bonus point win.

porterbelly

Zzippy wrote: »

Realistically, if we can beat Treviso like we did last week (should have been a 5 pointer IMO) then we should be looking at 5 points against Aironi. They will be missing a few players with the Italian squad, we will just be missing Cronin. We're on a good run at the moment at home, confidence is up and the team are playing nice rugby, as long as they do the basics right and keep playing the way they are this should be a bonus point win.

Can't take anything for granted. Aironi gave Ulster a fright last week and they've been training in Ballinasloe all week, indicating that they're targeting this game. It was always going to happen that Aironi were going to improve as the year went on. They're going to break their duck at some stage, lets make sure it's not this week.

g5fd6ow0hseima

porterbelly wrote: »

Can't take anything for granted. Aironi gave Ulster a fright last week and they've been training in Ballinasloe all week, indicating that they're targeting this game. It was always going to happen that Aironi were going to improve as the year went on. They're going to break their duck at some stage, lets make sure it's not this week.

Im surprised at that, and now im slightly worried. Still though - Connacht should get the win, but I dont know about the bonus point. Aironi pushed Leinster to 7 points in the RDS without their Italian contingent which doesnt bode well for us.

It's the 'return leg' which I fear most. I'd take a 3-0 win!

durkadurka

Leinster had a really young team out, but aironi are defo improving. Not to be taken lightly I think

Zzippy

porterbelly wrote: »

Can't take anything for granted. Aironi gave Ulster a fright last week and they've been training in Ballinasloe all week, indicating that they're targeting this game. It was always going to happen that Aironi were going to improve as the year went on. They're going to break their duck at some stage, lets make sure it's not this week.

I'm not taking anything for granted, the lads need to do the basics and make sure of the win first and foremost, but if we front up and perform like the last few weeks, especially at home, we can take a bonus point too. Treviso on paper are a much better side, and league positions say so too. We still had problems against Treviso, particularly at scrum time when the props were changed, and Aironi should be well up for the game too, but I firmly believe our lads are good enough now to be setting higher targets and beating these teams well.

PhatPiggins

Fisher Inexpensive Board wrote: »

Im surprised at that, and now im slightly worried. Still though - Connacht should get the win, but I dont know about the bonus point. Aironi pushed Leinster to 7 points in the RDS without their Italian contingent which doesnt bode well for us.

It's the 'return leg' which I fear most. I'd take a 3-0 win!

They should have beaten Munster a couple of weeks ago but James Marshal had a horror show with the boot. Aroni don't have that many internationals away, it'll be a tough game.

Robbo

CONNACHT: G Duffy; B Tuohy, N Ta’auso, T Nathan, F Carr; I Keatly, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, A Flavin , J Hagan, M Swift, A Browne, J O’Connor capt, R Ofisa. Replacements: D Murphy, R Loughney, R Ah You, B Upton, J Muldoon, C Willis, M Nikora, K Matthews.

AIRONI: J Marshall; K Robertson, G Payan, M Pratichetti, D Demas; R Bocchino, T Tebaldi; A De Marchi, R Santamaria, U Gamboa, J Furno, M Bortolami capt, J Sole, G Krause, N Williams. Replacements: L Ferraro, A De Marchi, L Redolfini, G Biagi, N Cattina, G Toniolatti, G Pizarro, G Rubini.

Flavin in for Cronin and Muldoon back from a 3 month layoff. Looks like rain later on with the possibility of sleet. I think it's an evening to keep the ball close early doors and try to build up a score the hard way.

porterbelly

Robbo wrote: »

Flavin in for Cronin and Muldoon back from a 3 month layoff. Looks like rain later on with the possibility of sleet. I think it's an evening to keep the ball close early doors and try to build up a score the hard way.

Mightn't be a night to go chasing the bonus point early doors. Keep it simple and keep the score board ticking over. Ofisa needs to be on his game tonight. He has a big weight disadvantage against Nick Williams and if Williams isn't stopped at source he can be very dangerous, as he proved last year in the Sportsground with Munster.

CouchSmart

Just kicking off now. James Jones is ref, should be a laugh.

guapos

Con 3 v 0 Air after 28

Carr was very loose there with his pass. its too wet to be trying off loads like that

durkadurka

Looks really cold there

seanin4711

Aironi are improving defensively,but we should be further ahead,James Jones never dies us any favours at home.

guapos

Keatley in the corner going to TMO.

TRY

seanin4711

Keatley having a mare,NIKORA on now,we are very poor and they are worse.
1 from 5 ,bout time for him.

durkadurka

No try. Touch unlucky there

seanin4711

Aironi pushed ulster all the way last week and were very unlucky not to get a losing bonus.
We were lucky there!!!
Time to get the finger out

Cosmo Kramer

Home town decision there!

durkadurka

Looks like it's snowing now

seanin4711

#5 aironi ????

seanin4711

This is not sexy rugby

seanin4711

Sweaty boxers time

durkadurka

Doesn't look too sweaty there

Zzippy

Crap game but 4 points in the bag, conditions were awful. I still can't feel my toes! James Jones was as, ahem, entertaining as ever. Aironi have improved enormously, fair play to them, and their defence is pretty solid, even if they live offside, but with a ref like Jones you're not going to have to worry about that too much. Keatley had a bit of a nightmare with the boot tonight, if he hadn't it would have been a fairly handy win.
Up to 7th in the table!

Steyr

Just home, what a game, not sexy Rugby at all-ABSOLUTELY FROZEN and it snowed too :mad:

durkadurka

On a night like that you just grind it out and take your points . Well done conn.

Couple more wins would be nice, finish ahead of the scots and Italians.

porterbelly

4 points in the bag, no night to go chasing the bonus point. Great effort from the forwards, Loughney slotted in nicely, and Browne and Concrete were magnificent.

Decent crowd for a filthy night. Good atmosphere as well. Plenty of areas to work on for 2 weeks time, Bortolami schooled us in the linoeut tonight.

siltirocker

Jesus, Keatley had a 'mare. He had the best ratio in the league this year, i'd say that stat has been hit hard after that. Typical though, our best player in our recent turn around and when he has a chance on the tele to show it to non-Sportsground dwellers, a poor performance appears.

Delighted for the win though. If we can get 10 points in the next 5 games i'd be happy.

GerM

Ahead of the Dragons now as we enter the business end of things. They don't have a simple run in so if Connacht can get a few favours from some other teams then there's no reason they can't pip them for the HEC spot. Connacht will need to win at least 2 or 3 more games though I reckon. They need to get something in Aironi and at home to the Blues and Edinburgh.

durkadurka

How dows that work?

lologram

durkadurka wrote: »

How dows that work?

It doesn't, they removed the 'playoff' between the bottom Irish and Welsh team 2 seasons ago.

Connacht will only get in the HC if they finish above Ulster, if Leinster win the HC or if Munster win the Amlin.

GerM

lologram wrote: »

It doesn't, they removed the 'playoff' between the bottom Irish and Welsh team 2 seasons ago.

Connacht will only get in the HC if they finish above Ulster, if Leinster win the HC or if Munster win the Amlin.

Gah. Thanks for point that out (and my ineptitude). Recall something about that alright.

Zzippy

siltirocker wrote: »

Jesus, Keatley had a 'mare. He had the best ratio in the league this year, i'd say that stat has been hit hard after that. Typical though, our best player in our recent turn around and when he has a chance on the tele to show it to non-Sportsground dwellers, a poor performance appears.

He did score a good try though!

Podge_irl

lologram wrote: »

Connacht will only get in the HC if they finish above Ulster, if Leinster win the HC or if Munster win the Amlin.

or if Ulster win the HEC

[Jackass]

Goes to show the difference a coach can make.

Connacht, the constant basement boys of the Magners League, and made little or no progress for years (and even, imo, were getting worse) under Bradley, now, in season one under Elwood, are ranked "the best of the rest" in the top 6 / bottom 6 divide in the Magners League with much of the season gone.

Who knows where they can get to over the rest of the season and seasons beyond, but great to see for both Irish rugby, and for Connacht fans, who've had a tough time over the years, it must be very refreshing for them now to have a side able to compete and showing tangible progress.

porterbelly

Hopefully we can build on the progress we are making. The fear would be that losing Keatley, Hagan, Carr and Cronin is that the only way we can go is backwards.

We still need to tie down the likes of Macca and Browne to contracts, and with the rest of the key players tied down we can build around them. If the IRFU remain true to their word and back us with a bigger budget then we have chance. Problem is that when 4 of our key players are moving to other provinces then it gives out the wrong signals, and up to now it looks like we're being screwed over.

Robbo

Some rather fetching tights the Aironi winger with the long hair was wearing.

SparKing

Robbo wrote: »

Some rather fetching tights the Aironi winger with the long hair was wearing.

for some reason that came up in the pub today!
Story? some sort of hamstring protection?

Zzippy

SparKing wrote: »

for some reason that came up in the pub today!
Story? some sort of hamstring protection?

Nah, go faster stripes!

[Jackass]

porterbelly wrote: »

Hopefully we can build on the progress we are making. The fear would be that losing Keatley, Hagan, Carr and Cronin is that the only way we can go is backwards.

We still need to tie down the likes of Macca and Browne to contracts, and with the rest of the key players tied down we can build around them. If the IRFU remain true to their word and back us with a bigger budget then we have chance. Problem is that when 4 of our key players are moving to other provinces then it gives out the wrong signals, and up to now it looks like we're being screwed over.

Not at all, quite the oppisite.

With those big players moving on, it's showing every promising young player in Ireland that connacht is no longer the graveyard of the "didn't make it's" in Irish rugby, but is now funtioning at developing Irish players, who then get oppertunities to come back and play for their province.

What's Madigan going to be thinking right now? A really talented out-half, he's behind Sexton and Berne, and McKinley comes back from injury and seems to get ahead of him, then he looks at Ian Keatley, completely out of favour at Leinster, off playing at Connacht and being moved to Munster to be groomed as the Irish number two or to even compete for the Irish jersey with Sexton, and getting a move to be groomed as first choice at Munster?

Or Jason Harris-Wright, looking at Cronin coming to Leinster, and Strauss playing so well, Harris-Wright knows he'll get limited game time, but has been superb when he got his chance with Leinster, he'd love to get that shot at Connacht now, rather than it being seen as a rejection and just not making it at your own province if you end up at Connacht, it's now been seen as a viable option to stay in Ireland and get into the shop window for the other provinces.

But the important thing is this.

Number one, I believe Connacht will be getting rid of the dead wood over the next few seasons, and I believe they will be given the cream of young Irish talent. The guys who are good enough to be playing Magners League, but are behind too much traffic. Guys like Maguire and McGrath too from Leinster. Top top quality young players, and the progress they make over a few season at Connacht will mean that guys like Hagan wont be a big loss.

So that's the number one support, is I think Connacht will get access to a lot more of the young talent, a lot earlier and will get really genuinely next generation top players, in an attempt to give them game time, delveop them quicker and keep them in Ireland.

And number two is, the glass isn't half empty, it's half full. YES it will mean every season some of the best players going, but that's the whole point, that's the whole deal, but no team can expect the pick of three top level European academies either and there will be a lot of very good players there at any moment in time, and you might lose Carr one season, but get someone like Conway in replacement. (although now that he's made somewhat of a breakthrough it's unlikely, but the "next" Conway...)

And, with all of these good players, and the very young average age of the squad, and Galway being a student town and lots of craic, don't be surprised if a certain aura develops around the club that it's almost like the IRFU academy, where players AIM to get to. schools, provincial academy, connacht and Magners League break in, back to province - but, with the sucess Connacht may have and the team spirit that may develop, don't be surprised if more and more players want to hang on who wont be guarenteed their place back home, and will be doing well with Connacht, and might want to hang around... it'll take a few to do it, but sooner or later it'll happen...

It was a big call for guys like Keatley, Cronin, Carr etc. all to agree to move to Connacht at the same time, and when they made that call, Connacht was not a good place to be for a rugby player - that meant your career was in serious trouble, but enough really good young players went there, made a success of it, and now changed that.

Connacht, in my opinion, despite them leaving, owe a lot to these players, and the only sour point of this whole thing I've noticed is sometimes the attitude to players when leaving, like they're willing to take all the benefits out of the deal as supporters, but then feel betrayed and like there's a massive sense of entitlement when the player takes the benefit out of the deal...

Stay positive Connacht, this is a great thing happening there, but get used o losing the best players every now and then, and don't forget that's kind of the point, but don't also forget the massive privellage of a pool of players being sent from some of the best teams in Europe in a way that Dragons, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aironi, Treviso etc. could only dream of....

sleepyman

Would love to see them build a new stadium-the sportsground just isn't good enough in the professional age.

CatFromHue

sleepyman wrote: »

Would love to see them build a new stadium-the sportsground just isn't good enough in the professional age.

is there really no where else connacht can play?

Zzippy

[Jackass] wrote: »

Connacht, in my opinion, despite them leaving, owe a lot to these players, and the only sour point of this whole thing I've noticed is sometimes the attitude to players when leaving, like they're willing to take all the benefits out of the deal as supporters, but then feel betrayed and like there's a massive sense of entitlement when the player takes the benefit out of the deal...

Great post, but this bit doesn't apply to the majority of Connacht supporters - we've got loads of appreciation for what those lads have achieved for us over the last couple of years, and while we're sad to see them go, and worry about it weakening the team, very few Connacht fans would begrudge them taking their opportunity to develop their careers further. The only one I would be really disappointed about is Hagan, who apparently verbally agreed a deal to stay, then reneged on it and agreed a deal with Leinster. But I still wish him all the best there, I honestly think he will be the first choice Irish TH within the next couple of years, and I'm glad we got to see him playing in the green here while he did.

porterbelly

Good post Jackass, and I get what you're saying, but Connacht supporters want to see Connacht push on up the table and get into the Heineken Cup. We don't want to be a 'development' province getting academy players every year and losing our best players. We aren't going to go anywhere if that cycle continues. We're making progress this season but losing our best players will set us back.

It's great that the likes of Cronin, Hagan etc are making an impact with us and we really appreciate their work and the way they've embraced the Connacht jersey, but the bottom line is they were young raw players when they came in and now they're nearly internationals. They're big players for us, but when they came they were young and inexperienced. They got loads of gametime, but we were the bottom team back then and shipped alot of hammerings on the road. The worry is that losing these lads and getting young raw lads in is that we're back to square one again.

Ultimately I think Elwood wants to build the team around indigenous players so that we don't have to depend on cast offs from other provinces. The likes of O'Connor, Muldoon and Duffy are the main names in Connacht rugby but we've got alot of Connacht born lads coming through at the minute like Andrew Browne, Eoin Griffin, Ronan Loughney, Dermot Murphy, Tiernan O'Halloran and Aidan Wynne. We've also a good presence in the Irish u20's with David Heffernan, O'Halloran, Eoin McKeown, Danny Qualter and Aaron Conneely all in and around the team. Obviously something is being done right here.

The announcement in December gave us great hope, but up to now it doesn't seem like its being adhered to. We aren't seeing any evidence that what the IRFU set out is happening. When you look at some of the points made you have to wonder was it all just a bit of good publicity for the IRFU after the Autumn International ticket debacle.

The Key points were:

•IRFU have committed to a three year period of firm support with a “significant increase in investement” and equal funding in terms of player contract support from hq.

•The IRFU are said to be fully accepting the possibility of Connacht taking a place of another province in the Heineken Cup.

•A professional games board has been formed led by Jimmy Staunton and is already focused on facilitates as priority number one.

•Eric Elwood has had his contract extended by two years.

•Negotiations have begun with other players to extend contracts.

•The IRFU have indicated that they have received a commitment from the other provinces to facilitate greater movement of players west on long term contracts when first team rugby can’t be guaranteed.


The 1st 2 points were the key ones for us but it's a contradiciton to what has happened. Hagan had agreed a new deal at Connacht only for London irish to come in with an offer that gazumped the IRFU offer so they matched it but only if he went to Leinster. That's completely at odds to what the 1st point says. It's also at odds with the 2nd point because the chances of us overtaking one of the other provinces for a Heineken Cup spot is very limited given the vastly inferior budget we have. 4 of our best players leaving doesn't exactly say much for an increased budget.

There's not much evidence of the last point being adhered to either. Munster have tied down all of their young players on full contracts for next year. Barnes, Archer, Butler, O'Donnell, Foley, Nagle, O'Mahony and Dave Ryan have all got full contracts. They're the type of lads we would have been looking at. Munster will have a massive squad next season and the likelihood of some of these lads seeing gametime is slim. Many peple will point to the 3 lads we're getting from Ulster as evidence that the system id working. But the reality is that the 3 signings we're making from Ulster has nothing to do with the development of young players. O'Connor, Anderson and McCrea are surplus to rquirements at Ulster and we're giving them a last chance saloon. They had their oportunities at Ulster but didn't impress.

Jedwardian

Porterbelly, good post but I disagree with some of it. Take this point:

•IRFU have committed to a three year period of firm support with a “significant increase in investement” and equal funding in terms of player contract support from hq.

You view Jamie Hagan moving to Leinster as a sign of this not happening. I don't think that's the case. I could be wrong on this but the IRFU give each province a budget from which to build their squad as they wish. They have a say in overseas or not Ireland qualified signings and also in international contracts which don't come from the provinces budget. They had no say in where Jamie Hagan was off to.

Connacht placed a value on what they thought Jamie Hagan was worth. The difference between Jamie Hagan and Rodney Ah You isn't so great that Connacht would overpay for his signature. London Irish and Leinster thought he was worth more hence he signed for Leinster. Connacht will now use the money earmarked for Jamie Hagan to bolster another area of the team.

On the next point:

•The IRFU are said to be fully accepting the possibility of Connacht taking a place of another province in the Heineken Cup.

The Munster players you've listed re-signing forthat province doesn't constitute the IRFU reneging on their acceptance that Connacht can make the Heineken Cup. We haven't seen who else Connacht may be signing. As it stands George Nauopu, TJ Anderson, Niall O'Connor, Mark McCrea, Matthew Jarvis and James Loxton is a good crop of signings. They aren't in the same class as Ian Keatley, Sean Cronin, Fionn Carr and Jamie Hagan but will improve the depth of the squad and there will be a few more to join them. Connacht have another 6 months to bring in more players before next season who can compliment the young Connacht born players you've listed.

With the World Cup taking place early next season unquestionably hindering other squads more than it will Connacht, there's every chance that Connacht will make a good start and have just as strong if not a stronger season next year than they have had in 2010/11.