Hard earned win gets Connacht back on track

Connacht 18

Cardiff 7

THE fog is lifting for Connacht. The autumn has not been kind to Pat Lam’s men, five defeats in seven means they are a forgotten foe among the elite sides in the Pro12 and slightly to the edge of the radar of Wasps and others in the Champions Cup, yet there is a sense that all is not lost after this much needed home win on Friday.

The first ten games were a bit of a mess but hardly detrimental to the overall season goals. While a proper title defence would have been on the agenda, a much maligned and poorly planned pre-season proved very costly early on. They bounced back from three initial defeats and a fortunate postponement in Parma to beat Edinburgh, Ulster, Toulouse and Zebre but lost their way in Dublin and Newport.

On Friday evening at a freezing Sportsground, uncertainty was in the air as the sold-out crowd filtered in nice and early to enjoy some of the amenities along with the usual pre-match entertainment that seems to be making the whole Connacht rugby experience one of the more sought after tickets in the west these days.

That uncertainty was warranted, patchy form, numerous returning injured players with rust to shake off (Denis Buckley, Tom McCartney, John Cooney and Craig Ronaldson among others) all combined with the fact that the visitors had won five of eight to start the season and came in with just two players on Welsh duty compared with three for Connacht.

By full time, the sense was that that air of doubt had almost fully dissipated, not because this was some sort of fluid all conquering display, in fact more probably precisely because it wasn’t such a display and that there were still 11 points between the sides despite a litany of handling errors and miscues.

If Connacht are to finish sixth (they currently sit eighth, seven points off Cardiff but with a game in hand) then clean home victories like this are going to be vital. By clean, we mean by a margin of eight or more points ,thus denying their rivals that all important losing bonus point. Of the teams ahead of Connacht, both Cardiff and the Scarlets look catchable. Neither look infinitely better than Pat Lam’s men, that’s for sure.

The foundation for this win came from the set piece play. Scrum and lineout worked well, particularly scrum. Tighthead prop Conor Carey looks like a really clever off season acquisition. The former Methodist College star arrived from English second tier side Nottingham during the summer and has settled into an important role well. He’s old school in his size, scrummaging and rampaging runs but quickly settling into the new school when it comes to adapting to Connacht’s loose play.

The return of Buckley and McCartney also played a key role in Connacht’s early dominance in the various areas of restarting play. The first try came from a five metre scrum that had the Cardiff pack going backwards. All three of their front row had come on for Wales against Japan a week earlier but here they were in Galway looking less than comfortable. John Cooney marked his return with the try.

Full coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune.