Carty sets the Sportsground alight with a superb cameo

Connacht 29

Benetton 14

Rob Murphy at the Sportsground

IN fairness, even Jack Carty was a little taken aback by the whole thing when the full time whistle sounded. His smile said it all, as he watched his conversion sail through the uprights to crown a fairly astonishing 20 minutes of rugby. The newly capped Irish international produced one of the all-time great cameo appearances on Friday night to turn a potential crucial defeat into a bonus point victory.

The Sportsground was cacophony of noise as the Connacht players jogged over to greet the Roscommon man and shower him in back slaps and handshakes. Carty was surely brushing it all off and they where certainly measuring their praise in accordance with the fact that their fleet footed fly-half has been doing this for years at the College Road venue but again, in fairness, this was a little above and beyond the call of duty.

The stakes were high. Connacht were in need of at least a win and considering what their chief rivals for the third and final play off place were at over in Wales, a bonus point for good measure. The Cardiff Blues were hammering Llanelli so even a team like Benetton Treviso who are in the play off mix in their own conference and in the midst of a record breaking campaign, needed to be put to the sword.

A 14-0 lead after 30 minutes suggested all was going to plan. The visitors had surprisingly left a multitude of first choice Italian internationals at home a week on from the Six Nations and stuck with the squad of players that had gone unbeaten during the spring and propelled the long standing east of Italy club into a position among the play offs for the first time in their history. It was a risky ploy from the third year head coach Kieran Crowley.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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