Edinburgh v Connacht

porterbelly

Connacht Rugby have announced the team that will face Edinburgh this Friday night (Murrayfield, ko 19.30)

With just 2 changes to the starting XV and 1 on the bench the squad remains largely similar to that which has won their 1st 2 games of the RaboDirect PRO12.

Ethienne Reynecke starts at hooker with Adrian Flavin moving to the bench and Johnny O’Connor replaces Ray Ofisa at openside. Ray will take the place of TJ Anderson on the bench while Dylan Rogers replaces Stewart Maguire as the replacement tighthead prop.

Michael “Swifty” Swift will become the 1st Connacht player to reach 200 caps this weekend. The 6’5”, 119kg second row joined Connacht in 2000, holds the highest number of caps in the European Challenge Cup (62) and is just 5 caps short of Cardiff Blues’ Deiniol Jones (135) who has the record number of league caps.

Connacht head to Murrayfield having never beaten Edinburgh there and Eric Elwood knows the challenge that awaits them:

“He (Michael Bradley) knows the lads inside out as he knows me and he knows what we are capable of. He knows our weaknesses and I think he might have a couple of surprises up his sleeves, but we would like to think we might have a couple of our own,”

“They will be under pressure, but we’ve never won in Murrayfield and we are going there to try and rectify that”

Connacht Rugby head to the Scottish capital with 2 wins from 2 giving them the best start to their league campaign since 2002 and with 8 points from 2 matches lie in 5th place in the table.



Connacht XV to face Edinburgh (Murrayfield – Friday 16th September ko 19.30)

15 Gavin Duffy ©

14 Mark McCrea

13 Eoin Griffin

12 Henry Fa’afili

11 Tiernan O’Halloran

10 Matthew Jarvis

9 Frank Murphy

1 Ronan Loughney

2 Ethienne Reynecke

3 Rodney Ah You

4 Michael Swift

5 Mike McCarthy

6 John Muldoon

7 Johnny O’Connor

8 George Naoupu



16 Adrian Flavin

17 Brett Wilkinson

18 Dylan Rogers

19 Dave Gannon

20 Ray Ofisa

21 Paul O’Donohoe

22 Niall O’Connor

23 Brian Tuohy

evil_seed

XV to face Edinburgh

15 Gavin Duffy ©
14 Mark McCrea
13 Eoin Griffin
12 Henry Fa'afili
11 Tiernan O'Halloran
10 Matthew Jarvis
9 Frank Murphy
1 Ronan Loughney
2 Ethienne Reynecke
3 Rodney Ah You
4 Michael Swift
5 Mike McCarthy
6 John Muldoon
7 Johnny O'Connor
8 George Naoupu

16 Adrian Flavin
17 Brett Wilkinson
18 Dylan Rogers
19 Dave Gannon
20 Ray Ofisa
21 Paul O'Donohoe
22 Niall O'Connor
23 Brian Tuohy


Swifty is winning his 200th cap. What a legend!!

I think we can get our 3rd win in a row, but realistically a losing BP would still be good

porterbelly

Edinburgh Rugby team to play Connacht at Murrayfield tomorrow (Friday 16 September, kick-off 7.30pm), round three of the RaboDirect PRO12

15 Tom Brown

14 Lee Jones
13 Jim Thompson
12 James King
11 Tim Visser

10 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN
9 Chris Leck

1 Kyle Traynor
2 Steve Lawrie
3 Jack Gilding
4 Grant Gilchrist
5 Steven Turnbull
6 Sean Cox
7 Roddy Grant
8 David Denton

Substitutes
16 Andrew Kelly
17 Robin Hislop
18 Shaun Knight
19 Esteban Lozada
20 Stuart McInally
21 Alex Black
22 Gregor Hunter
23 Matt Scott

evil_seed

mods can we merge the 2 threads. Created at almost exactly the same time :pac:

Robbo

Bookies have us 7/4 outright on this. Tempting.

profitius

Its certainly winable for Connacht. A win here and they'll have a great chance to make it 4 in a row next week. I'd imagine Bradley will treat this like a cup final!

CatFromHue

Michael Bradley's new team against his old team. This will be interesting.

irishbucsfan

Is this on TV?

I'm guessing no?

And on another point, how has Fa'afili been so far?

Robbo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Is this on TV?

I'm guessing no?

And on another point, how has Fa'afili been so far?

Only text commentary on Facebook and Galway Bay FM will be there.

Henry had a good game against the Scarlets, offloading well and running some nice lines. It was good running by him and a nice offload that put in McCrea for the try. I hear he was also decent in Treviso.

Hopefully O'Halloran barges over another defender or two like he did last week. Never put him down as a powerful runner, knocked the tackler back onto his arse!

fatgav

Robbo wrote: »

Bookies have us 7/4 outright on this. Tempting.

Optimism... we're doomed.

seanin4711

Is it on there?

Digifriendly

seanin4711 wrote: »

Is it on there?

No. They seem to cover only a few games and as many away games with Glasgow and Edinburgh as home games, maybe even more. They must be cash strapped and on a shoestring budget.

porterbelly

0-0 after 10.

Jarvis has missed an easy penalty with Connacht largely on top

Robbo

2 missed pens for Jarvis, one missed by Edinburgh.

0-0, seems a very error laden affair.

seanin4711

Robbo wrote: »

2 missed pens for Jarvis, one missed by Edinburgh.

0-0, seems a very error laden affair.

put fresh batteries in your radar!!!

Robbo

3-0, Laidlaw pen. George gone off injured and Duffy sinbinned. ****e.

porterbelly

Ref is ridiculously picky. These Italian refs are a disgrace

porterbelly

6-3, easy kick for jarvis.

COME ON

Robbo

9-6. 53 mins.

Zzippy

12-6. Ref sounds unbelievably fussy.

Robbo

O'Connor on for Jarvis. Let's see what this adds to the mix.

Robbo

12-9. Why do I get the feeling of a draw?

Zzippy

Robbo wrote: »

12-9. Why do I get the feeling of a draw?

I'd take it. Sounds like a terrible game...

Robbo

Ah hot piss, we had an attacking scrum on their 22 and the ref decides to call a crooked feed as if it doesn't happen at every scrum.

O'Donoghue on for Murphy at SH.

Zzippy

Rob Murphy: "I don't think we're going to be ordering the DVD of this game"

Zzippy

Try Edinburgh. Bollox!

Robbo

This displeases me.

Robbo

Try, O'Connor (N).

Zzippy

Try! Niall O'Connor. This pleases me!

Robbo

Conversion missed. **** it, all in.

eyeball kid

5 points behind, 5 mins left. Come one...

Robbo

Seems like Tuohy was caught late on a kick through. Touch judge spotted it late, pen, into the corner.

Robbo

19-14 FT.

At least a losing BP but far too many mistakes in a game that seemed winnable.

eyeball kid

Final Score 19-14.
Losing bonus point but it sounds like Edinburgh were there for the taking.

thomond2006

Losing BP not a bad result. Edinburgh away can be tricky.

Rickwellwood

Lads did well to get the try which sounded really well constructed right after Embra scored at the other end. LBP is fine. 9 points after three games is not bad going.

Hopefully injuries to George and Dave not too serious for Dragons at home next week.

Had Jarvis got his two earlier pens in the game ..............

Former Coach

Any word on who played well for Connacht?