New two year deal for Butler. Pleasantly surprised had a feeling he might move to France
Great to see the Leinster guys moving. For Dooley and Byrne it should have happened 2 or 3 years ago.
Hawkshaw will be fantastic.
Watched against the head the other night, and they showed some of the mistakes in defence leading to tries, and was it just a coincidence? but Tom Daly seemed to be the culprit for most of the easy breaks they made, either he took the wrong player and left a gap or he shot up too quickly and missed his man, without watching the match back properly, did anyone else notice that?
Very surprising as I'd always held Tom Daly up as a bit of a leader in the squad, leading by example, so missing tackles etc I haven't seen from him before. Or am I being too harsh on one player?
Could see Robb going too actually
Adam Byrne
Looks like a cracking prospect.
Could probably do with a fullback/wing
This will happen, if the Chay Mullins rumours are to be believed
That wouldn’t leave many of our Pro12-winning team……… Bundee, Kieran, Finlay, Heff, Pete Robb…..
Masterson was never the same after that knee injury. Never really has a bad game to be fair. Healy has been a great servant but he's not first or second choice now and is probably on a decent wage at his age. TOH's form has been awful for a few years now. If Dooley signs DRM could definitely go. Good solid pro14 player.
Could probably do with a fullback/wing And a hooker along with the rumoured Hawkshaw and Dooley.
Would guess e masterson, Healy, TOH are all at risk. Dillane already gone. Robertson McCoy?
How many of our senior players are out of contract this season ? I know there are new contracts supposed to come this week but are we likely to lose any senior guys ?
If we had a pack like Munster's we'd walk a lot of games with our current gameplan, Munster could score so much more if they played a bit more expansively. I realise I'm tping this after a record win for them at the weekend, but some of the games earlier this season where they struggled and didn't appear to trust their backs were awful to watch.
I think it's tough to lay blame at Friends door, our squad always looked lightweight before the season, just don't think we have the players to be honest. Especially when injuries inevitably strike and a few of the frontline players are gone.
It almost feels blasphemous to be typing it, but god I wouldn't even mind a season of Munsteresque low risk rugby with a solid defence & set piece. Whether that can be achieved with the current players and/or the current coaching set up is for people smarter than me to figure out.
Well deserved new contract for Burke, his progression has been one success story this season. I didn't think he had the size/physicality to reach this level, very happy that be proven wrong.
I thankfully missed the game, and could barely bring myself to watch the highlights, so I feel for those in attendance (although Edinburgh is a great spot to drown some sorrows!). Bernard Jackman placed the blame squarely at the players door in his analysis on against the head last night, and from what I did see it's hard to argue with him. One piece of advice - if you're still hurting from Friday, don't look at our fixture list.
Two year deal for Matthew Burke.
More announcements in the coming days
I know his presence wouldn't have changed the Edinburgh result but why oh why is Ultan not being selected, at least in the 23??
2 new contracts to be announced today first is Porch, on what appears to be a 1 year deal. Next one will be at 5pm
Suppose Connacht have to support Connacht clubs but Shayne Bolton would be better joining Shannon and playing at least 1B
I walked though a few of Edinburgh's tries on highlights and the defense was a shambles. It seemed like once E got a couple of scores ahead Connacht gave up. Whatever about Friend Connacht need to think about on field leadership, in a situation like that you need a few players who can set a standard and demand the others step up.
I see Shayne Bolton got a hat trick for Wegians at the weekend. AIL 2B just isn't the place to develop the likes of Bolton, hopefully there's an A competition in place next year.
Jeeeesus
The highlights are grim. Awful defense from Connacht. The couple of scrum that were shown were complete disasters for Connacht.
Connacht are a myster! They play great at times and are AIL level at others. To me, Friend must be the problem. I've not been a fan and I think he's out of his depth.
That's a good squad out west and yet they are awful sometimes. It's hard to imagine that type of performance.
Duggan is poor and Aungier has not kicked on. Dooley will be an upgrade for sure. Josh Murphy will add physical grunt and with Charlie Ryan coming in, they could have a decent pack.
Disappointing effort.
No comment
Hard to believe Connacht won there last year with Daly at outhalf, Masterson in second row.
The sad thing is Edinburgh didn't even need to be good.
One of their tries came off first phase with their 12 just running straight and no one laid a hand on him......no dummy runners or change of direction.....just ran straight and there was a huge hole to stroll through.
That's not a systems thing (though that might be an issue too), that's just one or more players going totally off script.
Even when players were they we missed loads of first up tackles, made that Edinburgh backrow look like world beaters. Couldn't win a turnover, couldn't secure our own ball, couldn't field a high ball, couldn't win a kicking dual, couldn't hold onto the ball in contact, couldn't win a clean line out could barely hold on in the scrum. We were lucky we weren't playing a better team or we could have had 100 put on us, we were genuinely worse than the score.
Europe looks like a pipe dream at this point, and if you're losing by nearly 50 to the Edinburgh reserves then that's probably only right.
We know we're a better team than shown last night, but equally have to accept we have performances like last night in us too.
The next time we wonder why we don't get more players in ireland it's worth remembering nights like last night; you won't see a performance like last night from any of the other three provinces. It's not the losing that's concerning it's the complete capitulation, the total collapse of system, the lack of leadership....none of it is encouraging.
Few weeks off now......hopefully some good news on signings and some time to reflect on where we're going because under it all there's a good team in there somewhere.
Think that's Connacht's worst defeat in 12 years or so? Mad thing is they were 8-0 up after almost 30 minutes and probably should have been further ahead.
Well played Edinburgh, absolutely tore us apart. Once they got in front they hit the afterburners and we couldn't get near them.
A bad day at the office doesn't make us totally crap just crap today.
The team that lost to Dragons haven't gone away.
Someone didn't look beyond Wikipedia, but are we surprised?
Jesus, what the f*ck happened?
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