Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Hmmm yeah.

We really should be pushing in the summer to get one of the Byrnes over here. Jack's contract is what it is, but we're being hurt massively by subpar 10s.

Slightly off topic but heard a rumour at Young Munster match that Munster are in talks with Tom Daly for next year, seems a strange signing if true.

Is he confirmed as leaving Connacht

Shocking performance today. I think we have a good squad of players.

Imo this is a coaching issue.

I agree but is it all on Wilkins or are the other coaches not up to scratch ? Team selection is always changing and not very settled. The players look like they don't know what to do most of the time. It's tough to watch what is probably our best squad ever be mismanaged so poorly.

Tector.

I can’t remember when I saw so many people leaving with 15 minutes to go.

Very disappointing performance but I always feel that bailing out before the final whistle is poor form.

The timing of the season ticket renewals isn’t great….

I think the victory of Lions　might bebecause of the effect of high altitude training. The altitude of their base Pretoria is about 1750m, so air is very thin. It's effectiveness cannot continues so long time. In Last season, they fought against Connacht 4 weeks after coming to europe, so they were not strong. This year, Connacht was unlucky at last night.

I believe that was also Mark Sexton’s criticism at 20s level - he came up with these intrinsic and complicated moves in training and would call players out in front of the team for messing it up and damage their confidence yet in games run very simple moves

Who knows what they work on in training but what we see on the pitch is about as rudimentary as it gets at this level. Find it hard to believe that Sexton is some sort of tactical genius but the players choose to resort to literal hands down the line, like an u12s team, when they get on the pitch. The Ralston intercept was certainly an individual error, but it was the fact that the players outside him were far too flat, with no decoys or deception, that put him in that position. That was phase play, but I can't recall much invention off first phase either. At one point, off an attacking scrum, we ran Forde on a crash ball then a one out carry off 9 on the second phase. Even the Jansen try against Saracens, one example of a successful strike move that comes to mind, was an extremely simple play that Galwegians used to run constantly 5 years ago, when Tiernan O'Halloran was coach.

I would love to see carolan back.

Wilkins has to take ownership of our performances for once. Its more politician energy than head coach in the media. Theres no accountability, same old rubbish and it's worn thin with fans.

Ultimately, much of the responsibility lies with the coaching staff for these performances, fair enough if we dont have the players to beat the very top sides. But, the game plan was completely wrong against 14 yesterday.

Why are we trying to outmuscle sides clearly more physcial than us? How many times this season are we in opp 22 and we pick and go repeatedly, or use one out runners with little or no success. There's been so many times where there's been basically walk-in scores there for the taking out wide, but if it comes, ball is so slow that the chance is wasted. That has to be a coaching issue IMO, the order appears to be to do just that. There's no confidence the backs can finish those chances, even when we have clear numbers there.

Phase play is so flat and lateral too, barely any go forward from the tight 5 and back rowers on the wing not able to impact that, they should be some of best carriers but we can't use them because were so flat to the line. We badly need to rethink our phase formation, we can't adapt at all once we're inevitably stifled up front by a physical side with linespeed. That style of play might work, IF we win the collisions, which we aren't showing any ability to do.

Yeah we haven't a top class first XV, but have reasonable squad depth, and we have the quality to win games like that.

God be with the day we had Murray Kinsella marvelling at our pods of 3, how they formed and reformed.

Connacht v Benetton will be a cracker next Saturday, both on 33 points and both sitting just off Top 8.

Agreed...

We have bee progressively getting worse through the season... It seems we are getting found out and there seems to be not evolving... Lions had doen there homework and sniffed everything out.

The handling errors seemed to coming from being very indecisive. There is a definite lack of leadership on the team and this is not a slight on Blade, it all seems to be on him at times and it is very hard to be captain and Scrum Half. There seems to be no running of the back line like Carty gave us last year. Where Carty's form is right now is hard to tell, he was no.1 until Christmas and been very much the number 2 since.

Truth is we are steadily getting worse. we may have lost 5 in a row before Christmas but that wasn't really a panic... One was Bulls i Pretoria (no one does well there)and Saracans (just a bigger outfit), Tight games against Edinburg, Ulster and Leinster... Good sides we we competing and while hurtful losses the performances were very acceptable.

Since the the restart of URC after European Jan window, we seemed to have lost our way... Poor night in Cardiff against 14 had to dig deep to get the points there, Gave Scarlets a look back ina game that should have been snuffed out... We seemed to lack the killer backline that when gets the ball will score. That seems gone.

Add that to less dominative line out and some big lapses in defence... Last Night, we got the worst Connacht performance I think I have ever seen... It is worse than the bad times because back then we really knew we didn't have the players, we know these players are good enough.