Cardiff Blues v Connacht, Friday 13/09/2013 1905

Nights like tonight are why I hate being a Connacht supporter. Cardiff are a great club but that was not a good Cardiff team no matter how you dress it up.

You could have a go at the ref in one or two instances but in all honesty we were the authors of our own downfall. I really thought that the new management team would bring a much greater focus on discipline and not giving away cheap penalties but we've scored 1 try to nil and lost by 11 points which tells it all really. I'd say the penalty count was something ridiculous but most of those decisions there is little arguing with.

We were comfortable enough for first 17 or 18 minutes then we shoot ourselves in the foot with some awful errors, somehow we turned a dominant scrum on the half way line into a penalty for Cardiff. Silly push from O'Halloran for the 2nd penalty after a woeful kick from Parks who is looking more and more like he's coming towards the end. We then blow a 5 metre scrum with a pack that is on top and are easily turned over. Parks missed a crucial kick at 12-10 which would have given us a boost at a key stage.

I thought George was awful, Swifty shouldn't be playing 80 minutes at this stage of his career, how Tiernan O'Halloran was left on ahead of Matt Healy I don't know.

Rodney was a joke at scrum time and the ref got it dead right in giving him a yellow. He made one or two good carries but how much longer can this continue. The primary function of a prop is scrummaging and its clear to all and sundry that he isn't up to it. I don't know what Dennis Buckley has done but get him back into the squad. I could go on, decision making was awful. I couldn't agree more with Connachta wtf was that at the end, we can get it down within 7 or 8 metres of the line and instead we got for some awful tap and go which barely got us over the gain line. Clueless stuff.

For all the talk of togetherness and three captains and all this, Connacht heads went down with the game still there for the taking and with it went the discipline, Cardiff looked much fresher coming towards the finish.

There is a hell of an amount of work to do. Its one defeat and its a long season but this looked like more of the same old rubbish. Until we start putting away these sort of games or at least returning home with something we will remain down the bottom scrapping it out for 9th or 10th. Craig Clarke can't come in soon enough to give us some real on-field leadership.

Rodney was a joke at scrum time and the ref got it dead right in giving him a yellow. He made one or two good carries but how much longer can this continue. The primary function of a prop is scrummaging and its clear to all and sundry that he isn't up to it. I don't know what Dennis Buckley has done but get him back into the squad. I could go on, decision making was awful. I couldn't agree more with Connachta wtf was that at the end, we can get it down within 7 or 8 metres of the line and instead we got for some awful tap and go which barely got us over the gain line. Clueless stuff.

Agreed but forget Buckley what about J.P. Cooney? At least he can scrummage and wouldn't give away as many silly penalties. I have to say I winced when I saw Wilkinson go off and Ah You on. It's reached a stage now were he pretty much guarantees that we're going to lose the game.

connachtexile wrote:

Rodney was a joke at scrum time and the ref got it dead right in giving him a yellow. He made one or two good carries but how much longer can this continue. The primary function of a prop is scrummaging and its clear to all and sundry that he isn't up to it. I don't know what Dennis Buckley has done but get him back into the squad. I could go on, decision making was awful. I couldn't agree more with Connachta wtf was that at the end, we can get it down within 7 or 8 metres of the line and instead we got for some awful tap and go which barely got us over the gain line. Clueless stuff.

Agreed but forget Buckley what about J.P. Cooney? At least he can scrummage and wouldn't give away as many silly penalties. I have to say I winced when I saw Wilkinson go off and Ah You on. It's reached a stage now were he pretty much guarantees that we're going to lose the game.

Not sure about Cooney

Was worried about him v Wasps, was hinging at every scrum

What I saw tonight was totally unacceptable. It seems to me that Lam has done very little to improve our team, its very obvious that a high kick ahead for OH to hopefully gather is the only change. In summary we were awful tonight, defense OK but giving away multiple penalties is just not good enough.

Rodney should not even be considered, replace with Cooney.

Robbie is not a centre, sorry for Duff but Robbie is best at fullback

Mul is not what he used to be, how about Heehan at 6.

Swifty is not a good captain, excellent work rate but he does not manage the "ref"

Based on what I saw tonight we will finish bottom of the league this year.

The only bright spark was Matt Healy, the rest should be looking over their shoulder.

I thought that this year we might progress, fight for a mid table position, but now, and I know its just the start of the season , we will be lucky to avoid being bottom.

jesus lads where has the pre season optimism gone? One win one loss and we're already headed for bottom? Where will Ulster finish after losing two in a row??

I have to agree there has been no break through with rodney, someone obviously made a call and moved him to loosehead at the end of last season and while it lessened his (negative) impact its not good enough. The worst thing is with the power he has shown to make breaks there's no excuse for a lack of power in the scrum. Maybe there's no hope but if the coaches feel there is any chance he can improve they should be taking him aside and drilling the shit out of him until he breaks or learns to scrummage.

Henshaw was good defensively and made a few half breaks, one of which was quickly recycled by marmion and created the try. When he ran at the opposition he sucked in defenders, that opens up space and provides opportunities. To dismiss him after only one full game at 13 is reactionary.

I did feel muldoon should or could have come off rather than faloon. (sidenote, the rabo pro12 site has faloon listed as 6'6'' but only 97kg, someone's taking the mickey no???)

I have a feeling we're seeing more of Swift atm while Clarke is out than we will in future. I'm not sure I understand why Muldowney is being used off the bench though, impact sub to make line outs easier as lifters tire/less capable hookers come on?

Would like to see more of Ronaldson from now on, Parks like Swift has to be managed, even in tonights cameo Ronaldson showed he could offer something different and break the line especially against tiring teams, needs to be on the field earlier though. Think he was on 8 minutes and made a half break but if he had been on with 20 or 30 to go he might have made a difference. Plus at the very least he needs to start learning what rabo level is like.

Also thought TOH was very good apart from one poor pass, which doesn't negate the good work he did throughout the game.

next week if we have Cooney/Buck for Ah You, Clarke and McShaz back, we would beat Ulster but 30 points! no, but seriously those three should raise the team to it full potential!

While I am completely at a loss with Lam's persistence with Rodney in any capacity, I agree fully with Sol_ie. My biggest worry is at 10 I'm afraid. Parks had a very poor game in Cardiff and when I think about it , was pretty poor against Zebre also.

To add to this, Nikora is out long term with a dislocated shoulder by all accounts and we only have the young guy Ronaldson as cover. This is simply not enough at this level where the 10 runs the game. Maybe it's time for Dan to now be put on the bench and let's see how good the new kid is. Never going to find out any other way.

Heenhan has shown enough in my book to deserve a start also.

Buckley, Clarke , McSharry are gaps that the present team cannot cover for at this level.The sooner they can put on the jersey the better before the season starts to slip away from us again.

Still , a win at home to Ulster would really be a shot in the arm for all involved with Connacht so we have to get behind the 15 who cross the whitewash next weekend.....

Fourdogs wrote:

phatguerilla wrote:
......I have to agree there has been no break through with rodney, someone obviously made a call and moved him to loosehead at the end of last season and while it lessened his (negative) impact its not good enough. The worst thing is with the power he has shown to make breaks there's no excuse for a lack of power in the scrum. Maybe there's no hope but if the coaches feel there is any chance he can improve they should be taking him aside and drilling the shit out of him until he breaks or learns to scrummage. ....

Why not drop him down to the Eagles and let him earn a permanent starting place (and discipline) there. No point in keeping a squad position on the Senior team for someone who is more of a liability than anything else at the moment.

I think they have done that at times but any problems with buckley and wilks and ah you has to come back into the squad so its not necessarily a long term solution. However its getting to the stage where you have to weigh the risk of playing Ah You versus the risk of trying out one of the academy props/cooney who are less experienced but might at least get better during the season. But as Ulster and Ospreys too good scrummaging teams are up next I can't see that decision happening in the next two games.

Fourdogs wrote:

phatguerilla wrote:
......I have to agree there has been no break through with rodney, someone obviously made a call and moved him to loosehead at the end of last season and while it lessened his (negative) impact its not good enough. The worst thing is with the power he has shown to make breaks there's no excuse for a lack of power in the scrum. Maybe there's no hope but if the coaches feel there is any chance he can improve they should be taking him aside and drilling the shit out of him until he breaks or learns to scrummage. ....

Why not drop him down to the Eagles and let him earn a permanent starting place (and discipline) there. No point in keeping a squad position on the Senior team for someone who is more of a liability than anything else at the moment.

I'm not an exProp, but I notice Rodney cannot get his legs under him, they are stretched out under the lock, and as such he uses his hand for balance and loses his bind, or else he has no leg support and he can be pulled down easily, it seems basic technique coaching , either no one is helping him or sadly, he just doesn't respond. Either way, we cannot afford to have him on the pitch.

so after a few hours sleep and time to reflect I don't think it was a terrible performance, yes it was poor but Cardiff didnt completely dominate the game, we had to defend a fair bit but some of the kicking from Parks, Duffy and TOH was very poor and that just handed them back easy go forward ball. Even when the forwards had the ball we didn't make any inroads and the backs were on the backfoot as soon as they got the ball, of course conditions didn't help. With 3 or 4 very good players to return to the side hopefully by next week we are better than yesterdays performance. I thought TOH mixed the very poor play with some very good, but he's no way up to Carr's standard for a young guy that had such a promising start to his Connacht career. It's time we looked at the style of our play and utilising Ronaldson as a running out-half he has the physique to attack the inside channel, again yesterday they targetted Parks and against Ulster that will be a bigger problem than was yesterday.

Anyway on a positive note, we have moved on from the embarrasing drubbings of a few years ago but we deserve and expect better performamces from the team.

Pat Lam is quoted today in the IT that he has never experienced such a high penalty count. I felt we had some very poor decisions were made against us, but in truth, I don't know why. The suggestion in the IT was that we were the wrong end of the ref's interpretation of the breakdown. I think the penalties in the scrum were fair call, as was George ahead of the kicker (stupid by him), but we seemed to be penalised for holding on a lot or not rolling away from impossible situations. There is very little about this on posts so far. Were Cardiff doing it different? Enlighten me....please!

We gave away a stack of penalties in the second half at the scrum, Wilkinson was penalised twice in a row and heading towards the bin when Ah You came on, he was done at least once before the penalty where he was binned. There's about a quarter of your penalty count right there.

Add in George's brainfart offside, TOH's push in the bcak (Parks fault actually, what a horrible slice) POD's high tackle, George going left off the back of the scrum when we'd wheeled right (and getting scragged and done for holding on) and nearer half the penalties are against the looseheads or are Really Dumb Shit.

Regardless of what Pat Lam says in the media I can't imagine Monday's look at the video will be fun.

If anybody has recorded the game I would suggest they go back and re look at it especially the scrums, Wilko was been punished for not binding properly and he gave away two penalties and he protested both and quite rightly as you can clearly see Wilko was binding correctly and the Cardiff player was pulling down on Wilko's arm. If you then fast forward to Rodney's crime against the scrum he actually held up the scrub and he too was penalised for the exact same offence as Wilko and you will clearly see the Cardiff prop pulling at Rodney's arm, in one scrum in front of the ref the Cardiff prop actually gives up pulling Rodney's arm as it was not having the desired effect and puts his hand on the floor to help him push all this was right in front of the ref. the last scrum where he got the yellow he was at fault . Did he deserve a yellow , no way the yellow was for persistent penalties at the scrum two of which were wrongly given against Wilko. Now if you also watch , get yourself a stopwatch and use it to time the rucks and what was deemed holding on and what was deemed fair there is in some cases a five second difference against you know which team. I don't know why Carr was not used as he clearly traveled and I don't understand TOH staying on the field and Healy coming off, nor do I understand why it took so long to get O Donoghue on the field. Muldowney and especially Heenan look like good prospects but that was a game we gave to Cardiff.