Archive News
Weakened Connacht take a pounding
Date Published: 30-Dec-2009
THIS was some wake up call. Munster pounded the heretofore high-flying Connacht into submission on St Stephen’s Day at Thomond Park and, in truth, based on stats in the areas of territory, possession, discipline and the basic errors, the scoreline could and probably should have broken 60.
The Connacht squad will look to put this behind them as quickly as possible ahead of Saturday’s tussle with Leinster at the Sportsground, but the performance can’t be simply swept under the carpet either.
Both sides may have made nine changes and Connacht were always going to be at bigger disadvantage in that regard but key players, big name players, produced dreadful performances on Saturday and that is a major concern.
This was the first time all season that the Connacht management decided to rest key players in one big swoop for a big game.
It is by now universally acknowledged that last season’s ‘targeting games’ policy failed miserably and played a direct role in turning a promising campaign into an abject failure. Half century drubbings by Cardiff and Ulster plus an unforgettably miserable 75 point pelting by London Irish had a detrimental affect on squad morale and momentum during the campaign.
This season Michael Bradley and his team have abandoned that approach but with an eight game run in as many weeks there was always going to be a need for changes in one game during this stretch and Thomond was the obvious choice.
Still though, Connacht came in with a strong side, none of the replacements seemed risky and all were capable of making a case for regular starts ,yet what is now abundantly clear is that the westerners really can’t veer too far away from their first choice 15 without suffering a dramatic drop in performance.
That, however, is only half the tale as what will be more worrying for the brains trust in the Connacht camp is the hugely disappointing displays from the likes of George Naoupu, Niva Ta’Auso, Adrian Flavin, Conor O’Loughlin, Miah Nikora, Bernie Upton and Mike McComish.
Others like Johnny O’Connor and Keith Matthews were well short of their best but are only back from injury while bar Brett Wilkinson, Jamie Hagen and replacements Ronan Loughney, the debuting Dermot Murphy and, of course, Ian Keatley, no one played close to their best.
There was a collective failure made worse by some hopeless individual efforts.
Munster were ruthless in the first half hour and built up a 20 point lead with little fuss. Ronan O’Gara’s boot was laser-like, while Ian Dowling and the impressive Damian Varley scored tries.
Both tries, however, came from basic errors from Niva Ta’auso and Geroge Naoupu. Two of Connacht’s marquee stars who had been on top form in the previous two outings. Ta’auso’s attempted tackle on Tom Gleeson 16 minutes into the contest was not far off embarrassing and minutes later his fumble when a simple pick off the ground would have led to a try for Connacht was calamitous.
That mistake led to Dowling’s try, but Naoupu was on an even worse run. The former Highlanders number 8 gave away three sloppy penalties in the opening quarter, including one daft transgression at a ruck on Peter Stringer.
To compound matters, his lazy attempt at a shovel pass from the base of a scrum led to Varley’s try in the corner on 25 minutes which all but finished of the game as a contest. Munster won a penalty, kicked to the corner and drove over.
This was a Munster side with nine rested front liners. Young Billy Holland is just 24 and in the blindside flanker role, he completely dominated Naoupu and overshadowed the struggling Mike McComish throughout the contest.
To make matters worse, big kiwi number 8 Nick Williams was made to look class by the Connacht back row throughout.
Munster eased off either side of half time and Connacht did defend well in that period. There cause was helped considerably by the fact that Ian Keatley was brought into the fray much earlier than would have been planned as a result of Miah Nikora’s injury.
Nikora is young and learning but can Connacht really afford the time and patience in developing an expensive young talent from the Southern Hemisphere? His goal kicking has been horrible to date and he was anonymous on Saturday. One cameo in the 16 minute saw him hiding in a ruck when he was needed in the stand off role.
The middle period of the contest was encouraging. The management gave runs to local up and coming players Ronan Loughney and Dermot Murphy and they both grasped their chance well. Murphy in particular on his debut, looked comfortable and confident.
Yet in the end, Munster were given all the time and space they needed to get further tries from Paul Warwick and Jean De Villers to secure the bonus point. They would love to be playing sides like this Connacht XV every week in their new home with bonus points being handed out so easily.
The good news for Connacht is twofold. First of all, last year they would have capitulated and lost by 60 plus points. They didn’t and that is a small sign of progress.
Secondly the next three games are at home to Leinster, Dragons and Montpellier. All are winnable and after this display, it’s going to take a clean sweep to really get the belief train back on track.
The return of seven frontliners should hopefully help the men in green get back on track, but some key players need to make amends for this poor display for that to happen.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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