Connacht 19 - 19 Glasgow
By Sea_point
March 6 2010
Another frustrating evening for Connacht supporters at the Sportsground, as a late,late try for the visitors ensure that Connacht and Glasgow share the spoils on the night.
Magners League -
05-03-10
Radio has been a wonderful
communication tool over the years, and for the Connacht fan abroad it
forms a critical part of follwing our beloved province during the
season. The demise of Setanta in the UK means that coverage of
Connacht is at best patchy. Tonight because Setanta 1 is not viewable
in the UK, I was forced to try stay up to date with the updates
provided by Knockon.ie's Rob Murphy for Galway Bay FM. For SKY
viewers in the UK; Setanta is not on the EPG so you can't
record the broadcasts. So I found myself waiting up for Setanta to
replay the game on their Setanta Ireland station, kicking off at
1.30am.
First, there's been a few on our forum who were overly dismissive about Glasgow because they were missing some of their 6N players. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh have a lot more depth in recent years since the demise of Borders, and that is reflected by the fact that even during the 6N period they can call on 7 or 8 recent internationals in their match dday squads. This Glasgow team played some decent rugby, were sharp and used the ball well with intelligent kicks and retained the ball well and their error count was minimal.
We also played well enough with or without the ball, but didn't play any territorial game at all and lacked a bit of incision in attack. Keats had one of his poorer games, he kicked his goals and one or two decent breaks but he didn't impose himself on the game. As the home team we should have been dictating where on the pitch the game was being played and ramping up the pressure on the visiting team.
All of Glasgow's points came from our indiscipline, three penalties given away for stupid infringements, first try conceded when McCarthy was stupidly/harshly binned for holding on (penalty yes ref, but yellow are you sure?It was on halfway not our own try line..) and they used the extra man well to create an overlap.
Watching the replay of the game I think the penalty and sin-binning against Glasgow cost us the match, the extra points lulled us into a false sense of security and we switched off at a crucial time. Critically and infuriatingly (because he had a good game overall) Troy somehow allowed himself to get sucked in off his wing into midfield which created the space for Glasgow to squeeze Eddie into the right corner.
So yet again Connacht somehow manage to avoid winning a very winnable game against decent enough opposition.
The referee James Jones was another to have an indifferent night, some questionable decisions from another of the new breed of referees who cannot seem to allow games to flow without interjecting constantly. I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing there was more focus on getting the key decisions right rather than blowing up every minor infringement. Effective Touch Judges would also be a novel addition to Magners League games. Still a small crumb for Connacht Supporters must be that unlike poor Ulster we didn't end up with a Scottish whistler on the night. Then we would certainly be lamenting the loss of more than two points.
Looking back to Elwood's comments during the announcement of his appointment, he referred to bigger attendances being critical to ensure a successful future for Connacht. He also referred to changing the mindset of the team, and to me on the evidence again tonight this is the absolutely the critical issue for us. Resolve this weakness in our make-up and regular wins and bigger attendances will surely follow.
CONNACHT: Duffy; Nathan, Matthews, Wynne, Carr; Keatley, F Murphy; Wilkinson, Cronin, Hagan, Swift, McCarthy, Muldoon, O'Connor, Naoupu.
Replacements: Morris for Hagan (41 mins), Upton for Swift (58 mins), McComish for O'Connor (62 mins). Not used: Flavin, Nikora, O'Loughlin, Tuohy. Sinbin: McCarthy (42 mins)
GLASGOW: Stortoni; Shaw, Murchie, Horne, van der Merwe; Jackson, McMillan; Welsh, Hall, Kalman, Barker, Turner, Eddie, Forrester, Vernon.
Replacements: Tkachuk for Kalman, Gray for Barker (both 53 mins), O'Hare for van der Merwe, Gregor for Jackson (both 65 mins), Kinloch for Shaw (72 mins). Not used: Thomson, Fusaro. Sinbin: Forrester (75 mins).
Referee: James Jones (WRFU).
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Gerry Kelly & the IRFU want to build the support. Success on the field is the only way.
Referee was terrible for both sides, but particularly so for Connacht.
Agree about the ref, it seemed as if he favoured the team that was in the lead, Glasgow for most of the match, but Connacht seemed to get a couple of strange decisions when they went ahead. His hand-signals were all over the place and the indecision with touchjudges didn't inspire confiedence, McCarthy coming back on the pitch to be sent back out again was risible.
Its hard to say Keatley didn't control the game, the forwards just didn't provide him with the platform for most of the first half in particular. However, maybe he could have got us territory at times in the first half in particular.
I agree its hard to say we weren't up for it but I think we believed that we'd dominate the exchanges up front almost by right after our complete dominance in that area against Ospreys.I think more than anything last night showed us the importance of what Upton brings to the team and indeed what Farley brought last year, the lineout was poor and one dimensional and Glasgow comfortably threw it too the back on a number of occasions which got them on the front foot.
Very dissapointing. Also the crowd given as 1412 on ML site must say I thought it was closer to the 2000 given on the BBC site?
We have a game in hand on both Llanelli and Cardiff and a win in that would have put us right back in the mix and put the pressure the two others...
I see the future, and it's Green again...
Ultimately though, the penalty count cost us. Pity about the try at the end, the defense had been so good up to that point.
Oh also, great try from Duffy. People don't rate his running game highly enough. The guy is good.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:03:08:06:44:25 by LDTT.
Quote:tohellorto noted:
I watched all the ML games this weekend (only highlights of Scarlets v Ulster). What really came through to me, is that the standard of all temas in the ML has risen. There are no poor teams - even temas without thier internationals. In oother words, there are no easy games for Connacht coming up!
Add to this the fact that the Welsh teams are battling for HEC spots and you can be assured that the Dragons will plan on taking the points on the 17th to put some space between themselves and the Scarlets and the Blues. Again highlighting the missed opportunities of the last two times out.