Out of sorts Connacht stumble badly

Ospreys 26

Connacht 11

IN the heel of the hunt, a 15 point loss to the Ospreys is unlikely to be a talking point when the season review starts in May 2015. This wasn’t a defining game in the  Connacht campaign nor could it be looked upon as points dropped, but it still rankles and could yet be a foretaste of some less promising days ahead.

The Ospreys are a play off bound side, they are a title contender, this was their seventh win in as many outings. Very few teams will win at the Liberty Stadium this season and that certainly goes for the Llanelli Scarlets, Dragons, Edinburgh and Cardiff all of whom are Connacht’s main rivals for a top six place.

Yet here was an opportunity all the same, here was a team missing seven front line players to the Welsh international squad and without a host of talented back row options, leaving them down to two strong flankers in Sam Lewis and Justin Tipuric, and three under 21s including last minute loanee from Cardiff Ieun Jones.

The Ospreys were vulnerable and two minutes into the second half a Connacht side that had lost just once in six previous Pro 12 outings, looked like they might take advantage as they led 6-3 and were dominating in the scrum. It wasn’t a case of the Westerners being worth the lead, they weren’t, the main first half try scoring chances had come from the home side but rather that in a broken, disjointed and flat contest, Pat Lam’s side had got their noses in front.

But this young Connacht side failed to hold their composure during the backlash despite having a real platform to exploit their opponents. That foundation came from a strong scrum and a close to full strength line up with Bundee Aki looking sharp in the early stages of his debut before breaking down with cramp in the second half.

During a disjointed and ragged 15 minute spell for Connacht, the home side scored 23 points without reply and had this game wrapped up by the 60 minute mark. It was the second week in a row that Connacht entered the final quarter of a game in ‘damage limitation’ mode. That’s a big turnabout from what we saw in the first seven games of the season.

While the Ospreys will review this as a game where a much beleaguered squad dug deep after a poor first half and eventually put their interior opponents to the sword, from Connacht’s point of view the game turned on a mismatch in defence and one costly lapse at scrum time.

During half time, the BBC Wales dressing room cameras showed Osprey’s coach Steve Tandy dissecting some of the problem areas on the big screen as the players looked on. It emerged afterwards that they had resolved to target some backline mismatches that were developing and were looking to attacking Connacht in midfield on second and third phase. It worked, Rodney Ah You was exploited by a Dan Evans break and Connacht were carved open with Hassler’s try on 46 minutes.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.