Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

He was miles past the ball, elbows on the ground. Penalty all day

Terrible news for Jj :(

Deegan staying on with Leinster is great news for them, but for him you'd have to wonder what his motivation is; in the prime of his career, a player of his quality shouldn't be holding bags for big games and only getting runs against Zebre or babysitting on tours to South Africa. At this point you'd have to think more international honours won't coming his way and 2 caps is a paltry return.

Just goes to show how well run leinster is when they are an attractive enough place for him to stay there and not make the bench for the big occasions rather than start at any of the other provinces.

Deegan despite his excellent youth profile isn't in the picture for international squads and it doesn't matter where he moves he's not got the physical game for it. Decent player but I think the game moved past his akillset to something more physical, he's not better than Coombes or Prendergast who can't get in.

Long past time to go shopping for a 10

Can't see Harry Byrne moving. He's getting plenty of game time (when fit) at Leinster and is in Irish teams. I just can't see what Connacht can offer him.

The promise of lots of first team rugby, and the chance to really nail down a 10 shirt, might appeal more to Sam Prendergast or Frawley, though the fact that both of them were in Irish teams/squads this year dilutes that appeal too a bit.

JUst read the squad update and Wilkins mentioned Tom Daly and Sean Naughton as possibilities to cover. Daly never really let the team down covering 10. He rates Naughton but is very inexperienced.

Aging terribly ;)

Reading Wilkins' comments, it seems he may cover both rather than having 4 options for each side of the scrum. Also pretty much confirmed Burke and DRM are leaving, which isn't a surprise.

Murphy is a bit of an odd one as it leaves our depth chart at scrumhalf skewing a little bit young, but certainly not going to complain about signing any player of his quality. I wonder if we're going to essentially give up on Reilly and focus on developing Devine and Murphy. Harsh but unfortunately he isn't particularly young (by comparison) and doesn't have much experience either. He was unfortunate in that Marmion and Blade were in situ for his formative years and he wasn't given many minutes when he really needed them.

Reilly and McDonald will leave at the end of the season.

That's not a bad team considering.

Quite early for a team announcement too, I wonder if there are more signings coming today?