Connacht becoming a serious force?

[Ruckedtobits]

Great performance this evening by Connacht in beating Munster 24-16 in appalling conditions. Munster owned the first 20 mins with the wind and Keatley was making kicking look child's play in a Force 5 diagonal gale. But once Henshaw collected a beautiful chip by Ronaldson and put Marmion in for a great try against the wind, the game changed completely.

Despite Munster having O'Connell, O'Mahony, Stander, O'Donnell & Botha, the Connacht pack were magnificent and their second try came from a beautiful line-break by Henshaw and their third try came from an almighty burst from Quinn Roux with huge pace and great power to set up a ruck beside the line for Muldowney or Muldoon to score. Connacht might have got four tries but they did well to keep Munster from even a losing bonus.

From an Irish team perspective, the Connacht headliners were Henshaw, Marmion, Ah You, Leader, Muldoon and Ronaldson (although he retired injured on 50 mins). Lam has Connacht humming and in the conditions their skill levels and accuracy ion the clean-out are items for Leinster to consider copying

[Keith]

Connacht scored some great tries and attacked really well in general. According to some on here you need a team of world class players to play a decent brand of rugby which is of course BS.

Well done Connacht!

[Oldschool]

Connacht coach becoming a Serious Force too.
I'd take Lam ahead of Henshaw right now and it's a no brainer.

[Stuka]

They played like Leinster used to play. Men hitting the line at angles and at speed. Off loading in the tackle.... beautiful.

[Andrew097]

New Zealand coaches suit Irish teams we want to run, we like it fast where skill and aggression make up for not having so many monsters. Except the Monsters where they just don't trust anything but a bit of passion and a kick to the corners
Will be successful in limited terms but will never bring about a world cup win.
Connachts win shows how good positive coaching can really improve a side plus a buy in by the players and fans. Leinster are going the other direction where poor coaching has been evident from day one.
Even Tony Ward was talking about MOCs time running out, this two weeks after he Tony was telling Leinster fans to get real.
It's pretty obvious stuff

[RoboProp]

Yes. They are. Worringly so. We are in actual danger of finishing behind them

Pendant alert
Should this not be in General Rugby section?

[ceemec]

Not to rain on the parade but Connacht have a bitch of a second half of the season schedule. They have to go away to every team in the bottom half aside from Edinburgh and Treviso. The away games in Cardiff, Newport and Llanelli are going to define their season. They have to go away to Munster and Glasgow also.

They've had a fantastic opening half to the campaign but it's still a big ask for them to make the top 6.

[Donny B.]

Not to rain on the parade but ......

takes a massive steamy piss on said parade ......

Jaysus, C-Mac, let them have their moment!

[ceemec]

Did I mention the weather is shite in Connacht too?!

[hugonaut]

Good to see Connacht put up the same sort of fight against Munster that they typically show against us in the Sportsground! It has irritated me a little in the past how they've put in good showings against us and rolled over for other provinces, so credit to Pat Lam for improving their mentality.

Also huge credit to their pack, who were extremely impressive for the full 80 minutes. Their lineout was top quality in appalling conditions with two relatively stumpy locks [neither of them taller than 196cm]. Never thought that Aly Muldowney had a game like that in him [20 carries for 41m, 9/1 tackles and 6/1 lineouts] – he really was a far more dominant figure in the game than Paul O'Connell, and it's rare you'd say that about any lock. Quinn Roux had a super game as well, very happy for him.

[RoboProp]

Agree with all of that Hugo. Always annoyed me with Connacht that they would throw the kitchen sink against us and then let the Dragons put a cricket score on them the following week.

Also, can we swap Douglas for Quinn?

[baaba maal]

Good to see Connacht put up the same sort of fight against Munster that they typically show against us in the Sportsground! It has irritated me a little in the past how they've put in good showings against us and rolled over for other provinces, so credit to Pat Lam for improving their mentality.

Also huge credit to their pack, who were extremely impressive for the full 80 minutes. Their lineout was top quality in appalling conditions with two relatively stumpy locks [neither of them taller than 196cm]. Never thought that Aly Muldowney had a game like that in him [20 carries for 41m, 9/1 tackles and 6/1 lineouts] – he really was a far more dominant figure in the game than Paul O'Connell, and it's rare you'd say that about any lock. Quinn Roux had a super game as well, very happy for him.

+1. I was particularly delighted to see Quinn play so well.That barrelling run he made was just like the youtube vids you could see of him in SA when he was due to join us. I never thought he was managed right by us (he seems like a quiet bloke and maybe needed more mentoring/sports psychology input?) and I really wanted him to succeed (for himself) with Connacht. Good on him for establihing himself there. I imagine at this stage we won't be taking him back from the loan, now that Douglas is with us, but hopefully he will continue to develop with the weshties.

@ Roboprop- I rather hope we manage Douglas better and help him to be the player I think he can be (the hits against Connacht make me think he has a lot more to offer).

It was great watching him taking on PoC in the mauls. Nice too seeing Bradley and Elwood together at the game too.

[fourthirtythree]

I go out to the panto yesterday with Munster 10 or 13 nil up and bar one lock and a pretty poor loosehead probably their best pack out on a dire sportsground night. And keatley kicking well, real 10 man weather. I don't even think it's worth recording. We know the script.

Well done the westies for exceeding expectations.

Trying to make sense of the match from the scrum stats, IIRC marmion's k/p/r was something like 1/114/10 we'd have had Boss box kicking into the lottery of that wind all night and come out complaining how innacuracy player error etc. cost us.

Something like 17 1 on their own lineout so kicking the ball away didn't work out too well for Munster either. They had no ball and kicked what they had away.

[leinster4life13]

Quinn Roux looked dangerous and interested, why are we a graveyard when it comes to developing locks. Its an indictment the amount of locks who pass through and either fail and suceed elsewhere ore ruined or are never given a chance(roux, galarza, lavalla)

[sewa]

Henshaw was the difference between the two sides, absolute class

[tricktreat]

Good to see Connacht put up the same sort of fight against Munster that they typically show against us in the Sportsground! It has irritated me a little in the past how they've put in good showings against us and rolled over for other provinces, so credit to Pat Lam for improving their mentality.

Also huge credit to their pack, who were extremely impressive for the full 80 minutes. Their lineout was top quality in appalling conditions with two relatively stumpy locks [neither of them taller than 196cm]. Never thought that Aly Muldowney had a game like that in him [20 carries for 41m, 9/1 tackles and 6/1 lineouts] – he really was a far more dominant figure in the game than Paul O'Connell, and it's rare you'd say that about any lock. Quinn Roux had a super game as well, very happy for him.

POC made 28 tackles yesterday, impressive since I thought he had a poor game as you alluded to above.

[hugonaut]

Good to see Connacht put up the same sort of fight against Munster that they typically show against us in the Sportsground! It has irritated me a little in the past how they've put in good showings against us and rolled over for other provinces, so credit to Pat Lam for improving their mentality.

Also huge credit to their pack, who were extremely impressive for the full 80 minutes. Their lineout was top quality in appalling conditions with two relatively stumpy locks [neither of them taller than 196cm]. Never thought that Aly Muldowney had a game like that in him [20 carries for 41m, 9/1 tackles and 6/1 lineouts] – he really was a far more dominant figure in the game than Paul O'Connell, and it's rare you'd say that about any lock. Quinn Roux had a super game as well, very happy for him.

POC made 28 tackles yesterday, impressive since I thought he had a poor game as you alluded to above.

I'm not knocking O'Connell, more praising Muldowney. I just didn't think he was capable of a performance like that. There were a lot of tackles made by the Munster lads alright, Tommy O'Donnell up near 30 as well. Much of that is a function of the weather and Lam's first-half gameplan, which was a textbook response to the conditions.

Big gusty winds and loads of rain made passing and handling a lottery, so there was absolutely f*ck-all point in trying to kick against the wind or throw it wide. The only thing you can do in those conditions is keep the ball, keep it close and try and keep moving forward – go one-out, around the corner, scrum-half drag, inside switches etc.

Marcus Horan made some fairly remarkable comments during the first half about how Connacht had to try and get around outside Munster's centres, which made me think that he was commenting from a studio in Dublin rather than the Sportsgrounds – it was a bizarre thing to say.

I thought that Anthony Foley was outcoached by Pat Lam. Connacht dominated out of touch and kept the ball all day, and while Keatley played the first half well, he played the second half like somebody who'd never played in the Sportsground before – again, crazy when you consider he spent three seasons there as the home outhalf. Lam had just given Munster a blueprint for how to play against the wind and they didn't know what to do with it.

Last week, Munster were the hammer and Leinster were the nail, but this time around Connacht were the hammer and Munster were the nail. It hasn't happened too often before.

[simonokeeffe]

I thought McCartneys throwing in was amazing, in such conditions most hookers in world would have thrown have of them crooked (except Duncan Casey of course )
Whole pack had real confidence to keep varying throw and keep lineout moving and not just snap throw to 2 all the time

Ronaldson made a big difference too IMO

[johng]

Ronaldson made a big difference too IMO

Ronaldson was offered a pro contract with Munster the year before he went to Connacht, but he didn't take it. I'd say he enjoyed giving them some stick yesterday.

[simonokeeffe]

Ronaldson made a big difference too IMO

Ronaldson was offered a pro contract with Munster the year before he went to Connacht, but he didn't take it. I'd say he enjoyed giving them some stick yesterday.

he didnt fancy being 3rd choice or any idea the motivation?
Aki turned down Munster too
even have the Jimmy Gopperth of locks, Muldowney, playing like Paulie