Connacht rattle French hosts but still end up with nothing

Toulouse 32

Connacht 17

AN opportunity lost. Seems harsh to say that but Connacht came away from a rainy afternoon in the Stade Ernest Wallon with a fairly resounding loss that didn’t come close to reflecting the story of the game on Saturday.

A losing bonus point would have been hugely significant but decision making, poise under pressure and raw power remain a major issue in big games like this for the men from the west, and all of those factors came to the fore in the closing stages here.

There’s no doubt that there are a lot of positives to take away from a performance where Connacht led by a point after 50 minutes at the home of the current French champions and against a team packed full of former and current internationals – especially, when you consider the list of absentees from the visiting squad included Bundee Aki, Denis Buckley and Kieran Marmion among others. So, this was a fine effort and certainly isn’t a setback in the overall sense.

Yet even though Andy Friend’s key line for the post game media was that the performance and the last two weeks have served to underline why Connacht belong at the elite level of European rugby, you have got to believe that he and his management team were also privately seething at some of the mistakes in the closing quarter of the contest. Mistakes, that saw the Westerners concede 14 points – including a bonus point fourth try – and left them without a point to show for their endeavour.

The stakes are high right now for Connacht, staying in the hunt for a play-off place in the PRO14 and reaching the quarter finals of the Champions Cup requires big wins against elite sides over the next eight weeks. They will need to beat Gloucester, Munster and Toulouse at home and win away to one of Montpellier and Gloucester. That’s just to stay on track. Big teams, with big budgets and powerful international class players. There would be no great shame in losing to each of them.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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