Connacht 6 - 18 Leinster - Best Effort Not Enough
By Rob Murphy @ Knockon.ie
October 27 2010
That’s two games now without a point. Two bone crunching tireless performances against a star studded Cardiff Blues in Wales and an unusually battle-ready Leinster at the Sportsgrounds and nothing to show for their efforts.Galway Bay FM's Rob Murphy reviews the action for www.knockon.ie...
Dominic Ryan’s injury time intercept try took an invaluable losing bonus point from Connacht giving Leinster an 18-6 victory and left Eric Elwood bemoaning the lack of composure in those closing stages when a win still seemed possible but a point would have been credible. To get nothing is deeply disappointing.
And yet we shouldn’t be too surprised. The back to back wins over Leinster in Galway in recent seasons were perhaps under appreciated a little in one way, they were outstanding results for the simple reason that Leinster are a top five side in Europe and on their day, shouldn’t lose to Connacht.
Saturday was their day, well, to be more precise it was their forward’s day. That’s not to suggest for one second that the Connacht eight didn’t perform, they gave it bucket loads in fact, but it is to say that both packs performed at their best and Leinster had a slight edge.
The focused on key areas, their lineout, which was near perfect in terms of accuracy as well as hugely difficult to read. Each call was varied with a succession of creative and threatening moves.
A well oiled machine grounded in accurate throwing from man of the match Richardt Strauss. Connacht were struggling for possession as the lineouts were not there to be disrupted and the scrums were a lottery, a successions of free kicks and penalties from George Clancy underlined the continuing trouble with the set piece in world rugby at the moment.
The pause before the engage is what is causing all the fuss and it is leading to endless resets and very few completed scrums without a side being penalized. It all contributed to a pretty uninspiring contest in the first half although the intensity was high from both sides, Leinster came looking to avenge previous defeats and Connacht had a home record to protect.
The game’s key moment came on 15 minutes when a Leinster lineout was tapped to the Isac Boss who burst through a gap created in part thanks to a block on Sean Cronin, although Ray Ofisa had drifted too far across, it opened up and Boss found Isa Nacewa with a brilliant pass for him to canter home in the corner.
The score stayed way until Ian Keatley notched a penalty for Connacht, he had a chance to stretch his side in front on the stroke of half time but missed a basic kick in front of the posts. A costly error in such a low scoring game.
At half time it was clear that if Connacht were going to win, it would be by a tiny margin and if they didn’t it would be by more than seven. That’s how it turned out. Leinster were patient, they struggled to gain inroads in the backline. The only players missing from their Heineken Cup starting side were Fitzgerald, O’Driscoll and D’arcy which might explain why neither backline had an edge.
It won’t bother Joe Schmidt or his players one bit that they didn’t excel in that area or that it was a win with just the two tries, this Leinster team came to Galway with just a smidgen of concern that they could lose. That and a full strength pack was all they needed to get over the line in the end. They’re just that good.
Connacht scrum half Frank Murphy will have nightmares about that loose pass into the arms of Ryan for the final way. A bounce point chucked away and his second horror moment of an otherwise good season. It left his coach wondering why his side didn’t just clear the ball to touch and take their medicine deep in their own half. Hindsight and all that.
Treviso are next up, the jewel in Italian club rugby’s crown. The club with buying power and back boned by the Italian national side. They have a seriously astute coach in Franco Smith who realizes the importance of building a brand by making the league’s new boys a credible and respected force at home first and foremost.
So far, so good with three wins from four, heck they even had Leicester on the rack in the Heineken Cup only to let it slip in the last few seconds. Leinster, the Scarlets and the Dragons have come home beaten, only the Blues have won there so far.
A result on Saturday in the north east of Italy will better the win in Glasgow last month and restore some drive in the Connacht engines. Another pointless excursion, no matter how brave, will negate a lot of the early season progress.
Att: 4,582
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I hope it doesn't end up being another season where we look back at all the points Connacht missed out on. Already we have the point here, three from the late loss to the Scarlets and perhaps 2 from the Ulster game. As well as the lads have played it's frustrating to think they could be sitting third in the ML and top of their pool in the ACC with more consistent performances.
Ulster could have gone either way, we'd have been fortunate to win. A draw was ok.
In contrast, I'm still sickened with the Cavalieri result. That was a huge setback.
Of course its easy be wise after the event and its not really in most teams psyche to kick the ball out to end the game when you're within a a score.
However, to lose an intercept try for the 2nd time in three weeks in a tight game in the closing seconds is unforgivable really. Something similar happened against Munster about 3 seasons ago when we tried to run the ball across our own line which left us with nothing from a hard evenings work that night as well. Really we never had any chance of scoring from where we were on the 10 metre line, a garryowen might have been an option, it has been an overused tactic recently but given Nacewa's poor attempt at a catch minutes earlier it would at least have got the ball into the right area of the pitch and we could have seen did anything come from it.
Its easy talk but I just hope if we are a couple of points up late on next Saturday that we don't make the same mistakes again.