Magnificent Connacht floor Toulouse in Heineken Cup

Toulouse 14

Connacht 16

YOU march and you trudge and you stop and you go again. You rest and you despair and you complain and you go again. You dream and you criticise and you forget and you go again. All for days like this. To win just once.

Here we are. All of Europe is talking about a rugby team from the West of Ireland. A rugby team that doesn’t always get it right, doesn’t always deliver the perfect game, but always manages to relocate the compass when they have veered off path and constantly drags us out of our corners and makes us mighty proud to be from Connacht.

Let’s not hold back, let’s ignore bigger pictures and future obstacles and let’s just contemplate what has been achieved this weekend by a small rugby region producing a phenomenally disproportionate number of young players on a budget that is dwarfed by Europe’s elite teams.

Biblical historians will tell you that the David versus Goliath tail is a bit of a misnomer, that in ancient times, a marksman like David would have practiced that sling shot thousands of times. They’ll argue that David’s diminutive stature belied a deadly skill and that Goliath would have won most of his previous battles on reputation alone. Goliath in a sense, was nothing more than an freakish giant, immobile and short on ideas.

Toulouse are a giant in this competition and while they are hardly immobile, they were very much short on ideas here. They had no way of knowing this beforehand, but they didn’t stand a chance on Sunday. It was only in the final 15 minutes that they realised what they were up against. Up until that point, the thought they were staring at a brave underdog that, in their minds, would surely wilt at some late juncture.

The story begins with the 65th minute restart after Toulouse’s second try and conversion. The score was 16-14 to Connacht, how they had got here was now irrelevant, the inclination for most Irish teams in such a scenario is to stop and contemplate, which is usually where the reputable opponents pounce, but Connacht under Pat Lam are all about the processes and they refused to pause in this situation. For the caldron that they were in, it was the perfect response.

They won possession from that restart and Toulouse didn’t get meaningful ball inside the Connacht half for the rest of the game. They spent the next five minutes frantically defending wave upon wave of attacks. They sighed in relief as Parks just missed on a drop goal and dropped a long range penalty short, and they cranked up the engines for one last surge when the ball was turned over late in the contest. Full match report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

The Connacht Tribune Group and Heineken are delighted to offer a lucky reader the chance to win two tickets to see Connacht take on four-times Heineken  European champions Toulouse at the Sportsground on Saturday 14^th December.

Tickets for this high-point of the season are selling fast.

To be in with a chance of winning simply text or email your answer to the following question along with your name and contact details. The winner will be notified by close of business on Thursday 12^th December.

Question: Which team has won the Heineken European Cup most times?

Text your answer to 0861215987 or email to competitions@ctribune.ie along with your name and contact details. Entrants must be over 18 years of age.