Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

I am with you… I think we have enough good players (if this coach can keep them)

I very scared of the coaching at this stage.

Example: Blade is a scrum half, scrum halves rarely are made captains (in GB & I) because they usually have enough responsibility and chirp to the ref all game. Blade's game has suffered taking on so much responsibility especially without Jack on the field.

BTW, Jack is the opposite. Being Captain brought him on and made him take more control and increased his confidence…

Tom Farrell is our only actual No. 13 in the squad and he is bloody good to boot. There is no way Hawshaw is ahead of him for a 13 jersey.

This was our year to see if Forde could be a possible 10 going forward. It doesn't look like we are getting anything from the IFRU and Ulster are nailing themselves for any 10 coming available. If we want to try this we will need Tom Farrell to help cover the centre positions, it is crazy to be expecting Hugh Gavin to be URC quality straight out of the gate especially in such a demanding position...

In fairness, the forwards have not been the source of problems since the Lions and where our source of scores on the weekend..

Devine looks good too… There is so much to like in his game, his speed to the base is very high but he also seems to have that Marmion type of controlling the pace of the game, speeding up when they have a break or stressing the opposition.

Jennings is the reason we won't miss Killgallen…

Thought Boyle had a fine game considering how long he was out for and that disallowed try was dubious.. Rarely sen in other games.

Finally, someone teach Bundee how to swear in Irish… He sould be only allowed to swear in Irish at training..

That sounds good to me, plus Mack and Smith on the wings. Think Hawkshaw is still an option at 12, otherwise he's a Swiss army knife 23. In the pack I'd like to see Niall Murray start with one of Darragh/Joyce, the other on the bench.

But I don't think our season is over yet. The congestion mid-table is such that there could be a lot of surprises, could see us in 9th position after the weekend.

..

This season started with a ton of promise, the wins vs. Ospreys, Glasgow and Ulster and its hard not to look at it now as a very disappointing season. We've somehow appeared to regress over the season whereas you'd expect the team to get better as it grasps the ideas of a new coaching ticket.

The email today basically begging people to come to the Sportsground for the Zebre game is the cherry on top.

Leinster probably sold more tickets in the last two weeks than we will all season. We have the strongest squad we've ever had and a major stadium redevelopment about to start, I don't think we can complain about the IRFU too strongly.

If you want big signings, throwing away our chance at the knockouts and the Champions Cup certainly isn't going to help. I would like to see that backline against Zebre though.

Well said. Likewise I have supported Connacht when they were winning a couple of games a season, don’t recall ever being as frustrated about the set up. After a lot of progress over the last ten to fifteen, there is a real lack of ambition about the current set up, a jobs for the boys attitude.

From all appearances, there was never any alternative to Wilkins seriously considered last season which is absolutely bizarre when you look at his resume and the resume of our recent head coaches - Lam was a Heineken cup winning captain as a player and a super rugby head coach, Kieran Keane despite being an unmitigated disaster had a hell of a CV was offered Lions back coach by Gatland but had committed to Connacht, Andy Friend had been a premiership head coach, a super rugby head coach and Australia sevens head coach.

Those were the appointments when Connacht was in a far weaker position and somehow when Connacht was in their best “shape” ever we ended up with a guy who had lost his position in Edinburgh as an assistant coach and been part of Friends set up which had some highs particularly the finish but plenty of recurring mistakes and lows too.

Connacht badly needed a fresh direction but powers that be took the unambitious easy option. The decision to give Wilkins a three year contract was perhaps the most ridiculous part of it - I highly doubt he was being remotely considered for any comparable job, giving him three years is frankly a ludicrous insensible decision and a sackable offence for Willie Ruane.

If you look at last weekend, we conceded 5 tries, which would lead you to think the defence was a major issue. However (IIRC), 1 was from a maul, two were directly from turnovers caused by poor attack, 1 was a kick receipt error, and 1 was a missed tackle by Blade on a good read. So our defensive system was not to blame for any scores. My take on our defence is that we are much more aggressive than previous seasons, which has worked very well against lower to mid table URC teams. However, against more powerful teams who have been able to dominate collisions, we have been blown out (Bulls, Bordeaux, Saracens, Lions).

It seems we've managed to disprove the old saying that "the best form of defense is attack" quite a lot recently - with confusion or poor handling leading to turnovers, and those turnovers often resulting in demoralizing tries conceded. So, the onus is really on Mark Sexton to instill some clarity in the players minds, even if that means simplifying things considerably. Against Zebre and Dragons, hopefully we can build some confidence, and then who knows how we'll fair in the remaining fixtures. Hope is not lost, but the margin for error is gone at this stage.