Toulouse v Connacht

Been trying to find some words to say......... But hard to find the right ones........ Sport just grinds you down and breaks your heart, makes you angry and sad......... But then.......... Days like this........ Days like this !

From Dusautoir:

Toulouse skipper Thierry Dusautoir was the first to admit that his side were second best to Connacht in their 16-14 home Heineken Cup defeat.

And the French back row legend also claimed his team had expected to win the game and failed to adapt to the ferocity of the challenge presented by the Irish province.

"Connacht were more aggressive than we were and they played a very good game. We're really disappointed about our performance and about the result - we expected to win this game," said Dusautoir.

"Rugby has nothing to do about the gaps between our budgets. A game is 15 men against 15, and the 15 Irish men were better than us today. We will need a greater concentration to win next week.

"They got a lot of turnovers and played those well, putting us under a lot of pressure. We were not able to adapt against a team that played a perfect away game

"We played them a couple of years ago and, although we got two wins, they were not so easy to get. So we were aware of the fact that they are a good team, even if they're ranking last in the Celtic League.

"Irish teams are not the same in Celtic League and in Heineken Cup. This competition is special for them."

Just finished watching it a second time. As somebody said already hopefully this is a watershed moment for rest of season.
Plenty of positives. Defense not perfect but its almost if we got a defense coach all of a sudden.
Heros all round but Marmion, Heenan Clarke, Griff Robbie stood out for me.

I would like to see this 12,13, 15 combination for rest of season. Didn’t see many highlights from Edinburgh game but Griffin was great offensively and defensively today and against scarlets and deserves to make 13 his own. Hope somebody is doing the business on a contract extension for him. Robbie had one of his best performances but should have passed to Carr at 30 mins.
Changes for next week? Same starting 23 but:
McKeon for George. Less lineout options but George was our worst performer today.
Duffy for ?Healy. I think Duffy’s future is on the bench but he gives us more defensive options. He played well on wing last season after coming back from injury.
Rodney for Nathan . Despite his usual 2-3 knock-ons Rodders scrummed well and was mobile in the loose.
Swifty for Kearney. Again I would usually put swifty on bench but he’s be there before against Quins and Biarritz and always ups his game for the big occasion.
Would leave Parks at 10 but he needs to make touch.

Toulouse are about to get a lambasting from coaches fans and local press and will have a completely different attitude next sat. Having said that they have only won one away match this season – against Saracens.. A nice heavy pitch will affect the mobility of their oversized front 5.
Hopefully now we’ll see a sell out for Saturday. Maybe they should get those big temporary stands back in for behind the goal-line.

ps. great to see Buckley back.


Oh, and by the way, well done Pat Lam. F*%$ the begrudgers.

Lam out

I've no doubt I'll get shot down in flames for this, especially after our best win ever, but we have to keep realistic. We have always been capable of pulling out amazing backs to the wall one off performances when everything is against us, Quins, Biarritz in the last two years prove that.

The win unless it is backed up with regular wins in the Rabo means nothing and I still don't think Lam is the man to take us to where we need to be. Connacht have always had the heart and the grit to put in the occasional huge performance, this is the best ever, but are we any closer to doing it week in week out? I don't think so after seeing what the first half of the season has given us.

Back to earth people, this was down to traditional Connacht spirit and guts not Pat Lam.

great win but i might get jaws dropping for saying this and i hope the connacht players are reading this - but it should be expected.

we have possibly a plethora of future irish internationals here at connacht so it should come as no surprise - marmion,robbie, buckley, harris wright, griffin, mcshaz, heenan (ok after 3 yrs i detest this rule but he's special!)....and carr if he keeps defending like he did yesterday (twice he stopeed the ball carrrier and stop the ball being released quickly....class ) ...so there is some talent here (as well as academy - finn, o brien, carty etc etc

add clarke, muldoon to the mix and you have a quality spine of the team....

lads hope ye didn't go overboard on the sauce, we need ye to back it up again next weekend

Utter nonsense Murph13.. this win was not down to connacht spirit are you joking, did you watch the game? This was down to pure and utter determination and good rugby by our boys.This is down to Lam bringing about skill, focus and team playing, unlike last year. You must have a hidden agenda re lam?? I suggest biting the bullet and get behind your team, if it is indeed your team, and not forget Lam is our team leader, therefore he is part of the team. Its this negativity after a historic win that can bring the boys down.

WestLuce - you call it determination I call it spirit, pretty much one and the same. No hidden agendas re Lam it's just that yesterdays great win will not immediately wipe away all the shite that has preceded it, have a look at the Rabo table, it doesn't lie.

You are absolutely right that Lam is leader of the team and therefore he has to be responsible for where we are overall. There are no bullets to bite, no one is more pleased for the lads about yesterday than me, I'm just not wearing the same rose tinted glasses you are

murph13 wrote: I've no doubt I'll get shot down in flames for this, especially after our best win ever, but we have to keep realistic. We have always been capable of pulling out amazing backs to the wall one off performances when everything is against us, Quins, Biarritz in the last two years prove that.

The win unless it is backed up with regular wins in the Rabo means nothing and I still don't think Lam is the man to take us to where we need to be. Connacht have always had the heart and the grit to put in the occasional huge performance, this is the best ever, but are we any closer to doing it week in week out? I don't think so after seeing what the first half of the season has given us.

Back to earth people, this was down to traditional Connacht spirit and guts not Pat Lam.

Did Pat Lam dump your sister or something? That was the greatest victory in our history and your first comments are that it means nothing and Lam had nothing to do with it. Sad.

sorry murph13 dont agree and incredibly unfair on lam.

eoin griffin did a piece in the media before the game saying all the players bye into the way the coaches want to go. they are all behind each other, etc.

it aint any coaches fucking fault to ship 3 tries in 5 mins of any game for example. that can only be the players fault.

fast forward this week and he made the right bench calls at the right times. the half time talk seemed to work as our kicking improved.

but for me the way they celebrated with him at full time told a lot.

give him a break eh.

Darragh - what do you expect, Griff to say in the press that they hate the way Lam is coaching them?!

Happy to disagree with you all but like I said, have a look at the table. It was a great win and I'm delighted for the lads and of course Lam is going to celebrate, it will take more than one performance for me to be convinced though. If we win 4 out of the next 6 then we'll be getting somewhere, maybe this will be the turning point for the lads, I hope so but like I've said I've not seen much this year to convince me Lam is the man for us and for all those that have said the same on here are you now completely convinced he is?

Haven't got a sister Menace and as far as I know he's left my mother alone

haha fair enough

I am not embarrassed to say that I am in tears watching this Sol!!

murph13 wrote: Back to earth people, this was down to traditional Connacht spirit and guts not Pat Lam.

Incredibly disingenuous to the team and Lam. Yesterdays result certainly had an element of guts to it but if your going into the home ground of the best European club team of all time, you need that and a hell of a lot more. The tactics were spot on by Lam and based on how well our set-piece was combined with the best display of a Connacht backline going forward in our history. I've never seen so many patterns. Tactics were spot on yesterday with targeting the wide channel by always leaving 2-3 players out there and while we needed guts to get anything out of Toulouse it wasn't the reason why we won. We were better than them in most facets of the game yesterday and got what we deserved.

You take the good days with the bad days, and Connacht had an awful day last Friday and so many of us verbally kicked the shite out of Lam here. He got it right yesterday, give him the credit when it is due.

its_phil wrote:

murph13 wrote: Back to earth people, this was down to traditional Connacht spirit and guts not Pat Lam.

Incredibly disingenuous to the team and Lam. Yesterdays result certainly had an element of guts to it but if your going into the home ground of the best European club team of all time, you need that and a hell of a lot more. The tactics were spot on by Lam and based on how well our set-piece was combined with the best display of a Connacht backline going forward in our history. I've never seen so many patterns. Tactics were spot on yesterday with targeting the wide channel by always leaving 2-3 players out there and while we needed guts to get anything out of Toulouse it wasn't the reason why we won. We were better than them in most facets of the game yesterday and got what we deserved.

You take the good days with the bad days, and Connacht had an awful day last Friday and so many of us verbally kicked the shite out of Lam here. He got it right yesterday, give him the credit when it is due.

I talked to loads of the players in the airport last night. Every single one of them paid credit to the tactics. Nothing to do with the lads pulling a performance out of their backsides.
They had plans set by the coaches, and they followed them, and it worked.