CONNACHT COACH ANDY Friend didn’t hide his irritation tonight after his side’s Champions Cup dreams were dashed by Bristol in Galway.
Connacht have now lost two out of two and with four teams emerging from this 12-team group to the quarter-finals, it is now plainly clear that the westerners will not be one of them.
Had they made smarter decisions tonight in their nine-point defeat to Bristol then it may be a different story.
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But there was a needless yellow card conceded by Bundee Aki which saw Bristol score 14 points in his absence. The game turned on that point.
“I’m disappointed, frustrated, annoyed, cranky,” Friend said afterwards. “We just didn’t play our best footy out there.
“We got caught in an arm wrestle that we didn’t want to. We did some dumb stuff.
“It is frustrating, but at the end of the day Bristol were the better team out there and you’ve got to give them credit for that.”
To add to their misery, Connacht missed out on a losing bonus point when they turned down a kick at the posts in the final minute which was easily scoreable, opting instead for a scrum as they hoped for a last-minute try.
They didn’t get it and the upshot is that it may come back to bite them when the points are tallied up at the end of these four matches – as teams placed five to eight in each pool gain entry to the last 16 of the Challenge Cup. Connacht’s task has just been made that bit harder.
But Friend did not bash his players for making their decision.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to trust the players out on the field and if they feel that they’ve got momentum with things and they think they can get over then I’ll back that,” Friend said.
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'We did some dumb stuff, I'm annoyed, cranky, frustrated'
CONNACHT COACH ANDY Friend didn’t hide his irritation tonight after his side’s Champions Cup dreams were dashed by Bristol in Galway.
Connacht have now lost two out of two and with four teams emerging from this 12-team group to the quarter-finals, it is now plainly clear that the westerners will not be one of them.
Had they made smarter decisions tonight in their nine-point defeat to Bristol then it may be a different story.
But there was a needless yellow card conceded by Bundee Aki which saw Bristol score 14 points in his absence. The game turned on that point.
“I’m disappointed, frustrated, annoyed, cranky,” Friend said afterwards. “We just didn’t play our best footy out there.
“We got caught in an arm wrestle that we didn’t want to. We did some dumb stuff.
“It is frustrating, but at the end of the day Bristol were the better team out there and you’ve got to give them credit for that.”
To add to their misery, Connacht missed out on a losing bonus point when they turned down a kick at the posts in the final minute which was easily scoreable, opting instead for a scrum as they hoped for a last-minute try.
They didn’t get it and the upshot is that it may come back to bite them when the points are tallied up at the end of these four matches – as teams placed five to eight in each pool gain entry to the last 16 of the Challenge Cup. Connacht’s task has just been made that bit harder.
But Friend did not bash his players for making their decision.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to trust the players out on the field and if they feel that they’ve got momentum with things and they think they can get over then I’ll back that,” Friend said.
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Andy Friend Connacht Regrets