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Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

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Burkie1203

realhorrorshow wrote: »

Not this again, please.

Yes this again. Because some people want the world to revolve around whars best for their team and ignore the real world stuff going on

thomond2006

I hear there's this list that you can use to ignore posters you don't want to read.

realhorrorshow

Burkie1203 wrote: »

Yes this again. Because some people want the world to revolve around whars best for their team and ignore the real world stuff going on

Is it absolutely necessary to set them straight in this thread though? People come here to talk about Connacht rugby.

realhorrorshow

Anyway, the game. Bit of a strange one, thought Munster were pretty comfortably better but didn't put many points on the board, which gave us the chance to nearly pull off a massive smash and grab.

Said before the game that I would take a BP, but it was more important to me to deliver consecutive strong performances, which we unfortunately could not manage. Last week we were controlled, accurate, aggressive, and intelligent. This week we were sloppy, indisciplined, soft, and utterly braindead. Yet despite all of that we somehow managed to put ourselves in a position where we were attacking the Munster line at the death, two men to the good with the win pretty much in our grasp. To blow that opportunity attacking around the fringes, where Munster dominated us all game, was infuriating. With a two man advantage and Munster still defending aggressively close to the ruck there has to be oceans of space on the edge. There is something off with our squad that I can't place, the drastic and immediate swings in form, and the tendency for the entire team to implode and make stupid decisions across the board is very concerning.

Some of us on this forum have discussed the inevitability of other teams identifying our weaknesses and exploiting them. Tonight, Munster did that ruthlessly. Their decision to take a lineout instead of a scrum (something you rarely see) was evidence they believed they could target us in the maul, and they were absolutely correct. Resourcing of rucks has also been an issue for us at times and Munster had clearly decided they could get at us at the breakdown. It was depressing watching solitary guards getting blown through by aggressive Munster counter ruckers. Most frustrating was our inability to adapt at any point. There has to be a trade off to committing so many to defensive rucks, leaving space either out wide or in the backfield, but we were unable to find it.

Whatever else, supporting Connacht is never boring. The resilience on display at the end was nice to see, but unfortunately we just couldn't get the job done. Thankfully we are looking ok in the league (no non-Irish team has a winning record!) but regardless we could be looking at a stressful run-in.

realhorrorshow

SqueakyKneecap wrote: »

They're both good posters so ignoring is only detracting yourself of good posts. I don't think anybody wants to see them get in another 60 post back and forth though.

"20 new posts, maybe we've announced a new signing"

"Nope, just Connachta and Burkie arguing again"

connachta

Burkie1203 wrote: »

Yes this again. Because some people want the world to revolve around whars best for their team and ignore the real world stuff going on

I ignore nothing except your arrogance. Yes you like it or not but pro sport will find a specific way, like culture and so on, to keep their business and passion alive. Bye

Evil_g

Oooh. I wouldn't take that Burkie.

Burkie1203

connachta wrote: »

I ignore nothing except your arrogance. Yes you like it or not but pro sport will find a specific way, like culture and so on, to keep their business and passion alive. Bye

In order for sport to find a specific way they need several governments to provide them with vaccines, numbering in the region of 2000+. Given that the pharma companies have given soundings in the media that they are only dealing directly with government health authorities its highly unlikely any sporting body will get early access while there is people in the general population with a far greater need.

If that is arrogance then fine. But I think health authorities keeping people alive will take a far greater precedence.

[Deleted User]

MOD note

Connachta, Burkie take it to PM

Do not derail the thread again

ElisaAtWar

I really don't know what Frank Murphy's issue is with Connacht. Did he feel he got screwed by Connacht. All that aside what a clueless performance by people in our team. If you are being hit by a referee you just take it and try and work around it. So many poor decisions made.

[Deleted User]

ElisaAtWar wrote: »

I really don't know what Frank Murphy's issue is with Connacht. Did he feel he got screwed by Connacht. All that aside what a clueless performance by people in our team. If you are being hit by a referee you just take it and try and work around it. So many poor decisions made.

We now have 2 referees we need to avoid in Murphy and Whitehouse.

KBurke85

marley45 wrote: »

We now have 2 referees we need to avoid in Murphy and Whitehouse.

No we have two referees who we need to be better at reading their interpretations of the rules

freyners

Leighton Hodges needs to be on that list, not sure if he even refs still but I still havent forgiven him

Murphy is a strange one, its an uncomfortable position to be put in, he is a MRU ref but clearly his playing history is primarily Connacht. I would prefer he didnt ref our games just to avoid any scenario were someone could use his playing history as a smear against a call he makes in our games (both ways).

sydthebeat

ah jesus lads, frank murphy is not the reason you lost the other night.
you lost because you didnt protect your own ball well enough.

as a neutral i think he was consistent and reasonable enough to both teams over the 80 mins.
connacht profited from some soft penalties themselves.

Lost Ormond

freyners wrote: »

Leighton Hodges needs to be on that list, not sure if he even refs still but I still havent forgiven him

Murphy is a strange one, its an uncomfortable position to be put in, he is a MRU ref but clearly his playing history is primarily Connacht. I would prefer he didnt ref our games just to avoid any scenario were someone could use his playing history as a smear against a call he makes in our games (both ways).

Frank is an MAR ref but would his playing history with Connacht really be an issue?

He wont have played with the vast majority of Connacht's players so i dont really see it as an issue.
Did Glen Jackson not referee the Chiefs in his career despite playing for them? Alain Rolland reffed Leinster many times.
Ideally you would have completely neutral refs every game but that isnt always possible with so few teams at the top level within competitions and if you are talking about former pro players whove turned to refereeing

freyners

Festive Life wrote: »

Frank is an MAR ref but would his playing history with Connacht really be an issue?

He wont have played with the vast majority of Connacht's players so i don't really see it as an issue.
Did Glen Jackson not referee the Chiefs in his career despite playing for them? Alain Rolland reffed Leinster many times.
Ideally you would have completely neutral refs every game but that isn't always possible with so few teams at the top level within competitions and if you are talking about former pro players who've turned to refereeing

He's not that long out of the team, players like Marmion competed with him in the early/late stages of their respective careers. Just from that team at the weekend his playing career overlapped with Buckey, Marmion, Carty and probably a few more (Heff, Delahunt, Dillane I think were all contracted when Murphy played with us).

Your right in that it's not uncommon, your examples are true and look at Karl Dickson/Kyle Sinckler incident from the weekend although that's former teammates rather than former teams.

My preference would be that you don't ref a team you used to play with just from an optics sense alone. Realistically as you say its pretty tough, given that there are only 5 elite refs (and only 1 of those is not affiliated with MAR) it's not feasible to avoid every possible conflict.

Also just to be clear, I'm in no way saying Murphy is biased at all. Sometimes I feel he doesnt give us the rub of the green in close ones but I'm (a) not a qualified referee and (b) usually accompanied with alcohol when watching matches

FACECUTTR

sydthebeat wrote: »

ah jesus lads, frank murphy is not the reason you lost the other night.
you lost because you didnt protect your own ball well enough.

as a neutral i think he was consistent and reasonable enough to both teams over the 80 mins.
connacht profited from some soft penalties themselves.

I think Frank Murphy was good the other night. I think he is a good referee and has been neutral anytime he has reffed connacht games.
We lost because we got beaten up at ruck time and poor maul defence.

Zzippy

sydthebeat wrote: »

ah jesus lads, frank murphy is not the reason you lost the other night.
you lost because you didnt protect your own ball well enough.

as a neutral i think he was consistent and reasonable enough to both teams over the 80 mins.
connacht profited from some soft penalties themselves.

Agree he was consistent, think he was consistently poor though. The breakdown was a mess with a lot of hands in the ruck and players illegally slowing the ball down(on both sides), which he should have been much better on. He was also poor on tacklers not releasing before going for the jackal - at least two of Munster's turnovers were illegal. But they read him better, we didn't react and should have protected our ball much better once we realised that was how he was reffing it.
Basically, the game would have been a lot more free-flowing, and we might have seen more ball getting out to the backs if the breakdown wasn't such a mess. And for the record, I don't think that influenced the end result, I think it influenced the quality of the game.

Lost Ormond

freyners wrote: »

He's not that long out of the team, players like Marmion competed with him in the early/late stages of their respective careers. Just from that team at the weekend his playing career overlapped with Buckey, Marmion, Carty and probably a few more (Heff, Delahunt, Dillane I think were all contracted when Murphy played with us).

Your right in that it's not uncommon, your examples are true and look at Karl Dickson/Kyle Sinckler incident from the weekend although that's former teammates rather than former teams.

My preference would be that you don't ref a team you used to play with just from an optics sense alone. Realistically as you say its pretty tough, given that there are only 5 elite refs (and only 1 of those is not affiliated with MAR) it's not feasible to avoid every possible conflict.

Also just to be clear, I'm in no way saying Murphy is biased at all. Sometimes I feel he doesnt give us the rub of the green in close ones but I'm (a) not a qualified referee and (b) usually accompanied with alcohol when watching matches

I wasnt claiming you were saying Murphy could be biased. Sorry if it looked like that.

Its fairly hard to always get refs who dont have some form of affiliation to a team in a cross country league and the way the refs associations and unions are set up.
On (a) and (b) is that not every single fan in the world?

FACECUTTR

Irish Times has Noel McNamara going back to Leinster.
"Kieran Campbell has succeeded Noel McNamara as head coach to the Ireland under-20 team. The 41-year-old former Ireland scrumhalf will discharge the new role in conjunction with his position as Ulster Academy manager with responsibility for the elite player development pathway in the province. Denis Leamy joins the backroom team as defence coach.

McNamara will return to his position as Leinster rugby academy manager following a hugely successful stint in charge of the Irish 20s over the past three seasons, not just in terms of results but the manner in which his teams played - a bold, expansive style with players encouraged to take ownership on the pitch"

Surely if he was going west he wouldn't be taking up this role.

sydthebeat

that whole "friend away" rumour seems to have been predicated on scott Robertson joining the lions coaching team .

even if robertson was to do that, i see no need for him to vacate any position which would free up a return for friend to the saders.
super rugby aotearoa finishes in the first week of may.

the lions first game, should everything stay on schedule was the 25th june

there is no overlap that requires any position filing.

Zeugnis

Remaining rounds of Champions Cup cancelled, so no Bristol v Connacht:
https://www.connachtrugby.ie/matches/fixtures/

According to the IT, Connacht and Ulster to switch to Challenge Cup:
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/european-cup/champions-cup-likely-to-go-straight-to-last-16-after-temporary-suspension-1.4455639

(edited as I read an got up to speed with developments)

ElisaAtWar

Zzippy wrote: »

Agree he was consistent, think he was consistently poor though. The breakdown was a mess with a lot of hands in the ruck and players illegally slowing the ball down(on both sides), which he should have been much better on. He was also poor on tacklers not releasing before going for the jackal - at least two of Munster's turnovers were illegal. But they read him better, we didn't react and should have protected our ball much better once we realised that was how he was reffing it.
Basically, the game would have been a lot more free-flowing, and we might have seen more ball getting out to the backs if the breakdown wasn't such a mess. And for the record, I don't think that influenced the end result, I think it influenced the quality of the game.

I firmly believe that a referee has it within his or her abilities to completely murder a game. And Frank has done this many times. Hence my groan before kickoff. I hadn't been aware he was the referee.

He's normally a half decent referee but he should not be involved in such a setup. He has legacy issues

RonnieL

I just made the mistake of going back and watching the delahunt sin binning incident again. There's soft yellows, and there's that - no wonder neither TV station picked up on it, because nobody in their right mind would even contemplate it being a yellow. I thought Munster were the better team, and therefore deserved to win, but that decision really was a game changer.

Wegians89

Wonder will the postponed dragons match be played over the next two week

bayern

FACECUTTR wrote: »

Irish Times has Noel McNamara going back to Leinster.
"Kieran Campbell has succeeded Noel McNamara as head coach to the Ireland under-20 team. The 41-year-old former Ireland scrumhalf will discharge the new role in conjunction with his position as Ulster Academy manager with responsibility for the elite player development pathway in the province. Denis Leamy joins the backroom team as defence coach.

McNamara will return to his position as Leinster rugby academy manager following a hugely successful stint in charge of the Irish 20s over the past three seasons, not just in terms of results but the manner in which his teams played - a bold, expansive style with players encouraged to take ownership on the pitch"

Surely if he was going west he wouldn't be taking up this role.

Noel Mc is taking a new role at Leinster with senior team replacing a current senior coach.

KBurke85

Wegians89 wrote: »

Wonder will the postponed dragons match be played over the next two week

Nope only games over the next two weeks are Munster Leinster and Glasgow Edinburgh.

ElisaAtWar

Am I correct in saying that Buckley and Bealham were the only two players who started last weekend that also started in the 2016 Pro12 win.

I appreciate that all the other provinces have also rotated players, but I believe the difference between Connacht and the other provinces is when the game is a big game the big guns are rolled out.

In Connacht the team selections seem to be more performance based. And I believe that is a good thing. It makes Connacht more attractive to players who feel they are overlooked when the big games come along.

Hopefully Connacht will retain their Heineken cup place for next year. And as such they have an interesting profile for players who feel maybe they are not getting their opportunities.

I think if you look at Wooten, he is a perfect example of what is possible when moving to Connacht. He was invisible at Munster. He is very visible now

freyners

ElisaAtWar wrote: »

Am I correct in saying that Buckley and Bealham were the only two players who started last weekend that also started in the 2016 Pro12 win.

I appreciate that all the other provinces have also rotated players, but I believe the difference between Connacht and the other provinces is when the game is a big game the big guns are rolled out.

In Connacht the team selections seem to be more performance based. And I believe that is a good thing. It makes Connacht more attractive to players who feel they are overlooked when the big games come along.

Hopefully Connacht will retain their Heineken cup place for next year. And as such they have an interesting profile for players who feel maybe they are not getting their opportunities.

I think if you look at Wooten, he is a perfect example of what is possible when moving to Connacht. He was invisible at Munster. He is very visible now

Buckley didn't start. Injured. Loughney did

Dillane marmion also are in that xv. Sob and heff came off the bench

KBurke85

Connacht had a fan webinar with the 1885 club members this evening.
Nigel Carolan was on. He said there’s a chance either the ospreys or Dragons games could be moved to next weekend