Connacht capitulate

CONNACHT’S best ever Heineken Cup campaign ended in their worst ever European defeat at the hands of Saracens at Allianz Park on Saturday.

A case of ‘back to the future’ for Connacht who gave a pitiful performance reminiscent of hammerings in the bad old days that we thought were a thing of the past.

It was a humiliating day for the province in North London as the English Premiership leaders ran riot scoring eleven tries to nil.

The final score of 64-6 should have been far worse but Saracens’ out-half Charlie Hodgson left at least a dozen handy points on the field after missing nine out of 13 kicks.

And then on Sunday, a nastily-timed, cold, calculated leak to a newspaper highlighting that the province is facing a €900,000 deficit by the year-end, was designed to humiliate Connacht further.

The Sunday Independent reported that Connacht had already debts of €400,000 and that “between a shortfall in projected income, and an overspend on the professional game, the province will be saddled with a €900,000 deficit going into next season”, with obvious knock-on implications for recruitment.

The financial situation is extremely worrying but the timing of the leak is appalling and designed to maximise damage – the equivalent of the IRFU kicking Connacht as it lays downtrodden in the gutter.

Predictably, it has already led to calls to ‘pull the plug’ on Connacht from attention seekers in some quarters nationally. Of course, on-field capitulations like Saturday do nothing to help the Connacht cause.

At kick-off there was an outside chance of a Connacht win which would have secured at least an Amlin Cup quarter-final spot. By the 20th minute, they were leading 6-5, and the dream was still alive. By half-time, Saracens were in the driving seat, 18-6 ahead, having taken advantage of Nathan White’s sin-binning for dangerous use of the boot. He was lucky to avoid a red card.

Twelve points down with 40 minutes to go, Connacht were unlikely to cause an upset but you’d at least expect Pat Lam’s men to put up a resistance. They didn’t. Instead Connacht capitulated. And it was a capitulation of seismic proportions.

Saracens had the try-bonus wrapped up one minute after the restart when David Strettle crossed for his second of three tries. That try had its origins in Saracens ‘22 where full-back Alex Goode gathered possession and counter-attacked, getting as far as the Connacht 10 metre line before anyone even attempted to tackle him.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.