AFTER SUCH A thoroughly one-sided contest, there was little point in Andy Friend lingering on anything but the slender silver linings for Connacht.
An 11-42 home loss in an inter-pro is a thorough drubbing. And yet, after Leinster ran up a bonus point in 29 minutes and entered half-time leading 6-35, there was an uneasy feeling that the match could have gotten extremely ugly for a Connacht side with a body count rising almost by the minute.
Leinster had the territory to squeeze out more than the one try they managed in the second half, but their forward-led push was met by a gutsy resistance.
“The game was dead at that stage,” said Friend post-match.
“It could easily have been 70 points, but it wasn’t, that’s the one bit of solace we’ll take from that.
“We did come out in the second half and showed a lot more fight, a lot more spirit. but you can’t give a quality side like that five tries.”
Already stretched for tight five options pre-match, to the Australian it seemed like losing tighthead Finlay Bealham to an early injury was a final straw. Just as Kyle Sinckler was a telling blow to England’s World Cup final hopes, the loss of Bealham rocked the home side onto the back foot in the season’s first inter-pro.
I actually thought the first few minutes we looked good. But, I just said it at half-time, pretty much as soon as Finlay Bealham went off it looked like he was our Kryptonite and we lost all energy after that.
“That last 40 we showed a lot more spirit and fight. It’s five tries to nil in the first-half, one apiece in the second. They’re a quality side and we can’t let them play like that.”
The head coach heading back east was more than satisfied with how the night unfolded.
“Our ability to win the contacts both sides of the ball gave us the momentum, “said Leo Cullen.
“We didn’t do anything flashy, but it was just good grinding carries, very accurate around the ruck. Our forwards gave us good go-forward in general to put us in good positions.”
The only minus on Leinster’s visit to Galway was the withdrawal of Robbie Henshaw from the starting XV. The centre reported ill this morning and Jimmy O’Brien stepped into the centre, but Henshaw should be primed for next weekend’s Champions Cup opener against Benetton.
Will Connors was the only other injury concern after the win, but the flanker passed his HIA and was available for media interview before boarding the team bus.
For Connacht, the injury crisis deepens with Bealham set for a spell on the sidelines and Sean O’Brien again due with the medics after a luckless short stint as a replacement in the second half.
Great performance by Leinster. Kelleher to start in 6Ns
@Tom Reilly: there’s a positive to be taken in not losing by 70??? Good ol’ Connacht with the losers attitude, always great to see. Lol
@Liam Flague: hmm right they did barely have a tight five though for about 77 mins and 0 caps between the five of them…. up against about 200 in Leinsters so yeah probably did alright not to concede 10 tries
@Tom Reilly: Connaught are shite like..
@Liam Flague: I think what he meant was there was solace in the second half performance. It would have been easy to give up and there is credit in keeping leinster to 1 try in a game already lost.
We need Connacht to be competitive ,rumours about Aki and Marmion looking abroad is not good.
@rugbyanbeer: connacht are competitive, it’s just difficult when we are missing our front 5 and thats where we got destroyed. We don’t have the depth yet.
Again Connors is putting in some serious performances, has a high tackle count in every game he plays.
@Éamann Ó Duinn: I agree his high tackle on carty was a yellow card
@Paul Hogan: he hit his chest
@Peter Brophy: if he was a second earlier it wasn’t even a penalty
@Tim Magner: if he was an inch higher it was red
@Thomas Bohan: maybe six inches higher
@Thomas Bohan: an inch between chest and neck? Carty has bigger issues than his diving so.
Leinster defense suffocated us- they were a class act- the first half was the first time in a long time that we were totally outclassed- I hope Sean o Brien isn’t too bad, how unlucky, we just don’t have enough quality cover to cover the amount of injuries at present- I might be called in for Montpelier at this stage!
They gave very little for the crowd to get behind but that type of performance won’t happen again so soon hopefully.
A shocking bad performance by Connacht. No excuses. Not good.
How big does a squad have to be to have strength in depth.
Front Row 9
Second Row 5
Back Row 8
Scrum Half 3
Out Half 3
Centres 5
Three Quarters 7
Squad of 40. Am I way off?
@Darren Laird: Leinster generally use 55 – 57 players each season…. with approx 10 academy or sub academy players capped.
Having said that, the depth of a squad is a measure of the quality of your 2nd and 3rd choices rather than quantity.
@Darren Laird: About right. The challenge, of course, is not raw numbers, but that they all need to be at a minimum standard and ideally all at a similar standard. That’s not easy. Even Leinster doesn’t meet the ‘similar standard’ challenge across the positions, though it does very well on the minimum standard: the drop in quality when first choice players are unavailable is probably a lot less for Leinster than for other teams. Connacht’s main challenge is the drop-off in standard when first choice players are missing.
@Darren Laird: it depends a lot on international call ups. Leinster have had 15-20 missing during international windows at times so have had to dig very deep into the squad, academy and sub-academy. Alternatively, Leinster could have gone with their empty gruel bowl to the IRFU and asked “please, sir, can I have some more?” but they’ve chosen to invest in youth, which is why we have lads of 23 or 24 with 30 appearances and ready to play whenever they’re called upon. Other (more southerly) provinces take note.
@Joe O’Doherty: bit condescending to be playing that card Joseph when Leinster have twice the player wage budget of connacht and that’s before Denis o brien outside investment is included. Ye can pat urselves on the back all you want but when those internationals are away Leinster can still call up international capped players because ye can afford to keep them in the squad. Leinsters 3rd choice TH has 5 caps, 3rd choice hooker has 6 caps etc etc. Fair play though for being a super winner. Who’s connachts 3rd choice TH? I mean if the secret to winning was just playing young fellas then wouldn’t everyone be at it?
@Joe O’Doherty: further to that I wonder if the demented mole will be doing a feature on Leinster this season on why they’ve got such a bloated squad. A quick look tells me that Leinster not only has the biggest squad but also the biggest academy in terms of numbers of the four provinces. In fact they’ve got 8 more players in total than connacht does. Tis grand to be talking about depth when you can afford to keep 66 lads in your squad.
@Jim Demps: 66, you need to back to school and learn to count properly
@Darren Byrne: 46 in the main squad and 20 in the academy. What do you think that adds up to??
@Jim Demps: Yeah 46 in the squad, the same as Munster although that will change when they sign to more South Africans. Where’s Munster getting all that money from. The academy is completely different kettle of fish. Some of those guys will never play
@Darren Byrne: 3 more than munster and the 2 additions who aren’t confirmed yet will be next season. Munster can afford them because they freed up money in their budget by moving on 11 players at the end of last season.
@Darren Byrne: and the academy is part of the squad, they get used where appropriate like the rest of the squad. Shur that’s your mans point above isn’t it? That Leinster have invested in youth while the others apparently haven’t. Tis grand for now above to be grandstanding about youth but the extra 35% of budget that they have on top of munster and ulster is a far more significant factor.
@Jim Demps: Munster need to up their game on the business front then.
No point in complaining about others who set the bench mark.
@Jim Demps: Jesus Jim your Leinster bias is soo boring and clouds almost all your posts now. Get over it will ya.
An absolute f*king disgrace having a Leinster referee reffing a Leinster match. Wouldn’t be allowed happen in any other game and Leinster should have had 2 players sent off in the first 15 minutes. A complete and utter f*cking disgrace.
@Paddy Kennedy: Leinster outclassed us across the park, Leinster ref or not they were better. I don’t even think connacht were that bad, they just played against a much better team on the night.
@Paddy Kennedy: and a munster ex player reffing today’s game , it’s not good. Maybe one yellow but if you think the ref was your problem your in for a long season.
@Paddy Kennedy: it actually would be allowed happen in another Pro14 game and is happening today where a ref from Munster will ref the Munster-Ulster match AFAIK. That result last night had bügger-all to do with the ref.
@Paddy Kennedy: If ref was from Eyre Square it would have made no difference. Leinster far superior in every facet of the game. General standard of ref in Pro 14 is poor, but apart from a couple of poor calls (no ref gets every decision 100%) and ignoring the offside law (as with almost every match-day refereeing team) I thought he did relatively ok. After 20 minutes when it was clear we were being played off the park, a lot of home fans just started abusing the referee, it was embarrassing. I’m a proud Connacht man but hats off to Leinster, they schooled us. This Connacht poor-mouth, ref blaming narrative has to stop. When it’s rolled out the collective eye-rolling of Leinster/Munster/Ulster supporters (and plenty of Connacht supporters) is almost palpable. Time to change the record.
@Paddy Kennedy: yawn
@Paddy Kennedy: you think that was why you lost the game? You got beaten up, end of.
@Paddy Kennedy: right so. Wrong though.
@Slow Byrne: Well said. I’ve been going since they did the big push on season tickets 7 or 8 years ago and it’s always the worst part of the games. It’s improving gradually and much better than the early years, but still a pain in the ho1e. Stayed out for pints last night and went to the other side of town to avoid the moaning and bu11shit.
@stgdsf: Same as that. I went into Murty’s for 1 and heard some lad complaining to 2 Leinster supporters about the ref, he was damn near saying that he cost Connacht the win! It was laughable. The Leinster lads were just nodding and smiling politely and didn’t look up from their pints. I went straight down to Quay Street to get away from the nonsense!
@Slow Byrne: Ref wasn’t great but never came close to costing the game. Not having a second row and no bench cover for the front row is what killed us. I wouldn’t be so hard on our fans though, most come from a gaa or soccer tradition and as such are still learning the ethics of rugby and giving out about and to the ref is part of the game in those two sports. I don’t think many fans would have stayed and supported their team in such numbers when they were getting such a pasting but I was damn proud of our supporters in how they got behind the team and stayed behind them even aftervthe final whistle.
@Dino Baggio: You’re right a lot of our fans have GAA or soccer backgrounds but even someone with basic rugby knowledge would’ve seen that Leinster just outclassed us and the ref played no part in that annihilation. Sometimes supporters with little rugby knowledge aim their frustration at ref because they can’t identify one team genuinely outperforming the other. I think this is what happened last night because the ref, although not excellent, was ok. He was booed off by some at half time which doesn’t paint us in a great light. And just to be clear, I’m not generalising here. This was a small portion of the crowd. Problem is that you won’t hear people cheering on a referee for doing a good job, but you will hear them chastising him, whether warranted or not. And that’s what people notice.
@Slow Byrne: I don’t think anyone was blaming the referee for the Connacht performance or halftime score, they were very frustrated with his performance though and it was far from good as many Leinster fans have stated so I don’t know why you are going on about this great performance from him? Should he have been booed? Definitely not and I’ve seen worse ref performances but please don’t say he was good. Its ok to say a ref was bad, everyone has a bad game every now and again.
@Dino Baggio: Nowhere did I say the ref had a great, or even good performance. I said he did relatively ok. As in, relative to the generally poor standard of refereeing in the pro 14. Nor did I say that bad refereeing can’t be criticised, the crux of what I’m saying is that this ref performance was nowhere near as bad as some we’ve seen, yet unlike them, he was booed off and had more than the usual amount of abuse thrown at him.