Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Is Mullins diabetic, seen him taking a shot after the try

Great win, Paul Boyle is playing cracking rugby. Summer tour on the cards ?

Whats the story with Sean naughton? He looks a good player but don't remember him playing for Ireland at underage.

He was u20 last season but didn't get much game time as Jack Murphy was first choice. Connacht signed him to the academy straight out of Kilkenny College. Haven't seen the weekend's game yet but he looks a very tidy player at AIL level, and showed some positive flashes in the few minutes he did get for the 20s. Seems to be a good solid player with strong fundamentals and no glaring weakness to his game.

I think that Connacht should not put (spare) main players like Prendergast, Bealam, Hansen out next away match. It's must-win game.

After the weekend, all senior players have featured this season with the exception of Adam McBurney, Colm Reilly, JJ Hanrahan, Andrew Smith, and John Porch. Smith the most surprising of those to me as he played nearly 900 minutes last season. I do like him but you can only develop so many players in the same position at the same time, and I don't have an issue with us prioritising Bolton, Jennings, and Mullins.

Ralston going from playing literally every single minute last season up to his ban for that clearout against Munster, to 43 minutes across the first 8 rounds this season, is pretty mad.

Yeah, it's frustrating as it's pure sunk cost fallacy. Him doing his ACL immediately after arriving is unfortunate and doesn't retroactively make the signing a bad one. However, the net result is a steppy winger who is no longer a threat with ball in hand and isn't particularly good at anything else either. He's not even a steady hand as one would expect of a player of his experience, he makes as many errors as a young player.

No ill will towards him, he seems like a great guy who has bought into the province. Nevertheless, I'd rather he moved down the depth chart from here on out.

Im a bit conflicted on the challenge cup; I think we need all home draws in order to get to the final, to get top 2 seed I think we need 4 wins (maybe 17 points will do. I'm not sure we can do that even with our best squad out. So what do we play for? Home quarter we can do with three wins, which I think we can do. Or maybe just use it to blood young players?

Not even sure resting players for the inter pros is the way to go as beating leinster is a big big ask.

So I'm not sure if we should stick or twist. Maybe go full hog at the challenge cup and get some exposure for getting into a semi final?

Priority has to be top 8 in the league. Anything that jeopardizes that is foolish imo.

We were lucky to have some big players for us available last week. Josh, Shl, Heffernan all needed a run.

Id give a similar side another run, perhaps a few bench changes. Then see where we are for the next block and decide

Posolo Tuilagi has been injured the last couple of months and won't return to next year. I was caught between looking forward to seeing him play against us and fearing what he would do to us.

Andrew Smith is out of exile!

Nice side IMO. Good blend of youth and experience.

I wonder if he took some heat for going to the Olympics, he was ever present for the first few months of 2024. The less conspiratorial view is that the time away opened the door for the likes of Jennings and Mullins, which combined with Cordero and Bolton's availability to squeeze his minutes.