Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Yeah, it's a long time since I've seen him as happy in Connacht green as after his maul try on Saturday. Farrell also had a good game.

Really enjoyed being at the game on Saturday evening - the nice weather had everyone in good form, and the match was entertaining - the bit of niggle here and there was the icing on top.

However, I rewatched the first half last night, and all it did was remind me of how bad we are at clearing our lines effectively (mainly on restarts, but also in general play). For restarts, I think we've improved from a positioning/fielding perspective, but the lack of a "big boot" is killing us. It didn't really cost us on Saturday, but against decent teams it's the root cause of a lot of the scores we concede. It's unlikely they'll address it before the end of this season, but surely with some focus during the pre-season, they can identify one or two backs who can kick it consistently to around the half way line from inside our 22. As with goal kicking, it doesn't have to be the out half.

That's very cruel, just as they'd started trusting him. He was brought on at 47' against Treviso but only lasted 14 minutes before being subbed back off. Good luck to him on his recovery.

Have to think that removes any doubt about an extension for McElroy, which was probably coming anyway. I thought it was curious that DTM wasn't selected the last couple of weeks despite being available. Caution?

agreed

We seem to have tried it in a lot of recent games and can't say I recall any instance where it worked well

I looked back at the game to try and understand what you were say saying and I get it. One of the cases was Bundee knocking on from the restart. Not sure it should have been Bundee even collecting that ball. But definitely there was an open space to be kicked into which shouldn't have been there.

Now I know we won the Zebre game but with 30 minutes gone that game could have gone either way. In fact, without Devine's sniping, we looked bog standard.

And I think that's really the concern. We can hold our own at the scrum, we can hold our own at the lineout. But we just can't do the interconnections. Everything is so, for the sake of a better word, obvious.

Unfortunately this is not something we can fix before the end of the season. So I not very positive about how things will turn out.

I suppose, if one thing has been learnt, is Tom and Bundee are our centre partnership. It took our coaching staff to figure this.

So now we know such things, can you please coach our team

Sorry now Shehal. John Cooney clearly knocked that ball on in the lineout and you're only looking at it through Ulster tinted glasses.

All irrelevant as ye got the win, fair play. And I'll say no more on it in this thread.

Jackman saying that Tom Farrell to Munster is a done deal on RTE Rugby podcast.

Was reading an online article earlier saying both Connacht and Munster were trying to sign Piers O'Connor from Bristol. If Farrell is gone then it opens a spot for O'connor. Pity we couldn't hang on to Farrell I thought he was going to get capped internationally a couple of years back but seems to be out of favour the past few seasons.

O’Connor to Connacht and Farrell to Munster makes sense. Munster will then sign Dan Kelly next summer.

I was thinking the same. Maybe he wants a move.

Can't blame him, I'm tempted myself. I'm not one eyed enough to go south, too poor to go east and far too positive to go north. Guess I'm stuck here

Utter dipshits. Took all their selection criteria to figure out there wasn't a selection problem. Farrell leaving hurts me a lot. Complete gobshites at the helm

am done. ElisaAtWar has left the building.Fcuking idiots

This season we've tried Hawkshaw, Ralston, and Forde at 13, none of them were as good as Farrell.

Our problem is that we have a logjam at 12. Gavin has not been capped at senior level yet, so, although hopes are high, we don't know how the transition to senior rugby will go. He did play at 13 a few times for the U20s last year.

This episode is further evidence of the need for changes at management level, IMO.