Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Bundee was caught rotten for 3 tries tonight.

I think Lancaster will have Connacht come good in the long run. First season in was always going to be tough. Some of the players out there (mainly front 5) are completely out of their depth. That is an area that needs serious improvement. It looks like Connacht are running into brick walls and they are ran over in their own 22.

Some of the young players have talent I think and will come good - it will take time with this squad and sometimes you need to endure some tough results (just look at Ulster when Murphy took over).

Decent first half but the last 20 minutes there Leinster were making so many line breaks it looked like they had 3 extra players on the field. All they were doing was putting the ball through the hands and a big gap would appear. It was a bit embarrassing from a Connacht perspective. Defence just completely capitulated.

Confidence within the squad must be very low.

Aswell as the front 5 lack of power the defense seems to be back to being as bad if not worse than last season after a better looking start in the first few games....

129 points conceeded in the last 3 games. If we can't improve that then we won't win many games for the rest of the season

This is embarrassing

Lancaster should be called out and questions asked

What is the plan or future as there seems to be none

Can we look for a potential Pat Lam rather than been stuck with an Leinster& IRFU gospel spreader

In terms of a bounce, I think we got a bit unlucky with the cancellation of the game against an injury ravaged Scarlets. That was a likely 5 pointer and with a bit more momentum I think we could have done the job against Cardiff. We then lost by 1 and 2 points to the Bulls and Munster respectively. In another world we could have had 5 wins from the first 5 games.

Unfortunately, the wheels have come off spectacularly. Especially in defence, which looked much improved early in the season and has now reverted to what has been the mean for about 10 years now.

It seems like our confidence is in the gutter since the collapse against the Ospreys. I think we need to rotate heavily over the next two weeks, we look wrecked. Montauban won't be remotely bothered so hopefully we can put a big score on them to build a bit of confidence and produce a big performance for the occasion of the first game at the expanded stadium.

Lineout is a shambles and with Joyce, Murphy and Prendergast in there it's not due to a lack of targets. Maybe restrict ambition until confidence improves.

A couple of reduced numbers Lo's, a few short ones,the odd quick one and lots to the front. Getting quality attacking ball off the top isn't of great value to this team because we can't get through the phases to make it count.

Just secure the ball to at least stop us being opened off turnover ball.

I have a feeling things will settle once we sort the lineout.

I havent got the stats but were we really that much better last season. Same personnel but a different coach not sure how he's expected to improve us in one season. Also we have a major issue that a few of the teams that we could regularily beat in the URC have improved. I Could'nt for the life of me see how or why the optimism that some people on here had at the start of the season. We really do need some good signings in the pack as I'm not sure we have anyone in the academy thats going to step up.

As an Ulster fan, I will say try not to lose heart. When Dan McFarland was shown the door in Feb 24, most of the fans were just delighted to have someone - anyone - else at the tiller. McFarland had overseen some real improvement and some great stretches when Peel and Payne were in situ, but we were going down the toilet.

Richie Murphy pretty much had a free pass for the last few months of the season. He'd been a notable success with the U20s. The team seemed happier.

Then last season was - I think? - our worst ever. Worse by far than anything under McFarland. No Champions cup, 14th in the league. We fired our defense coach, Bell, during the season and just asked Willie Faloon to help out when he could. There started being Ireland squads with not one Ulster player. Most fans kept the faith, although when it was announced you folks were getting Lancaster and Munster were getting McMillan, it did feel like we'd got Murphy simply because he was convenient and more time and money was being put into the search for other provinces' head coaches (and these are IRFU appointments, not branch appointments).

But we're going great guns now. Far from perfect, behind Leinster <spits>, Stormers and Glasgow at the very least, but much improved. Playing much better rugby, young lads breaking through in a meaningful way. We also shed quite a few reliable, will-do-a-job-for-you but basically URC level players - Matty Rea, Andy Warwick, Al O'Connor, Kieran Treadwell and so on. Billy Burns as well. Just getting the wage bill down.

So this season for Connacht could just be the equivalent of last season at Ulster. Lancaster has only had a few months in situ - I'd be pretty confident that after some initial pain, things will improve radically.

I don't disagree at all with the broad thrust of this, but there are a key factors that have worked in Ulster's favour:

• They have been consistently producing good forwards for a few years now - Scott Wilson, Tom Stewart, Charlie Irvine, Cormac Izuchukwu, Harry Sheridan, Joe Hopes, Dave McCann, James McNabney, and Bryn Ward we're all born in 2000 or later.
• They signed two very good power forwards in Bell and Augustus.
• Murphy was able to bring in his own assistant coaches who he clearly trusts and shares a philosophy with.

We don't have the same calibre of forwards currently and I don't think we'll be able to sign any of the same quality as Bell/Augustus. We'll see what happens with the backroom team, they're be some transition anyway with Colm Tucker going to the 20s.

Deegan and McKee would be good additions. Penny and Larmor a bit of a luxury especially with current prop suitation.

Agreed but it's an attritional position, having one more quality option would allow us to use Josh Murphy exclusively in the second row, where I think he plays his best rugby.

Given leinster will field the strongest team for the next 2 weeks, they'll send a heavily rotated squad to Galway the next week. For example Boyle, Baron, Slimani/Cahir, Mangan, Deeny front 5. Connacht could mostly handle that if they put out a strong team.

Leinster might win but unlikely to be a big score