Heenan making the hard yards

THIRTY minutes into the Zebre Heineken Cup game last weekend and Connacht scored a nifty try, a pre-rehearsed move straight out of forward coach Dan McFarland’s locker.

A penalty kick to the corner earns an attacking line-out five metres out. Hooker Sean Henry feigns a throw to second row Craig Clarke in the middle of the line, and instead goes short, hits George Naoupu, who stretches for the touchdown.

It set Connacht on the road to victory; and lifted pressure off coach Pat Lam and the players as they head to Dublin this Saturday to play reigning RaboDirect PRO12 champions, Leinster.

In his weekly press briefing, Lam revealed that the move for the try was supposed to be used the previous week against Saracens but the opportunity didn’t arise.

It is a microcosm of what he is trying to accomplish here in Connacht, he said. “You could see the emotions afterwards because they put a lot of work into the try,” he said.

“That’s a symbol of what we’re trying to achieve here . . . For that to happen, every single guy has to get their role right. They all did it and pulled it off. If one guy didn’t do his role just right we would have lost that chance.”

Lam uses the example to emphasise how Connacht is every day, every week, trying to improve. His whole philosophy is about individual players bettering themselves, and thus collectively bettering themselves. That’s the mantra all week in the lead up to Leinster at the RDS on Saturday (kick-off, 6pm) – continually striving to get better.

They took confidence from comprehensively beating Zebre 33-6 in Parma, but there is always scope to improve, he said. “What we did in Europe is all based on what we’ve been slowly working towards and everyone is getting more comfortable with what we’re trying to do. Every day the relationships are getting better and better, amongst players and obviously me and the coaching group.

“I think the players brought it up themselves – we have to be more clinical. When we do our review we open it up first, and ask: What did we do well and how could we do it better? One of the things the players said was that we missed an awful lot of opportunities. While we didn’t get more tries we saw opportunities where we could have taken but we didn’t so that’s an area to improve.”

He acknowledged Connacht hasn’t won in Dublin since 2002; and hasn’t ever won in the RDS. “History is with them,” he said; so too home advantage.

Connacht has two more added to the injury list – Jason Harris Wright (bicep) and James So’oialo (ankle) – and none returning, before the squad is announced noon Friday.

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