Connacht vs Cardiff Sept 1st 17:00

I didn't see the game as I managed to do my back in. That said I heard the Cariff Blues were apparently targeting Vainikolo on purpose as he is know for his weakness under the high ball (Cardiff video analyst take you bow). That leads us to the problem which is other teams seeing how effective this tactic is Vainikolo he is going to be targeted in every game after. So one of three things has to happen.

1. He needs to be dropped and never heard from again.

2. EE needs to realise this is a massive weakness and get the fullback or someone to cover him aerially.

3. He needs individual training with someone who will drill him relentlessly on high balls until he becomes proficient at it.

Glad to hear the scrum did well but this is a game we should have won and the guys will know it as well. Hoping for a big performance next week.

clan clover wrote:

rossie wrote: It gave them field position without earnin it at a time when we were on top. Field position which they turned into 10 pts against the run of play. Yes others were also accountable but if fetu did the basics right there wouldnt have been the opportunity.
Its not the first time hes been shown up. Last season i highlighted this weakness.and was shot down. Its abasic but vital skill that he is missing and he will be targetted by teams now. The dropping was bad enogh but not even contesting for it is very poor. He left one ball bounce and that in itself means he should be dropped.

If they drop anyone it should be O Halloran, he made no effort in the whole 80 minutes, apologies he did make one effort at a tackle and was sent back three yards on his arse for his troubles, it's a good job the other winger was not running at him at the time or he would have landed in Bohermore.

Borders no2 , i agree the mistakes had there starting points at Fetu's knock on's ,but they should never have led to any points as they were both in harmless enough areas and there were a hell of a lot more guys culpable . They were certainly not opportunities for Cardiff but the team our team turned them into opportunities all by themselves. Your right though only a few held there hands up.

The same O Halloran who was our top scorer last season and is in his 2nd season of professional rugby, and who was clearly carrying an injury from early on which limited him

Fetu'u has history with the knock ons under a high ball and having brainfarts.

Look, I know I'm rounding on Fetu'u, but he had a big reputation coming here, he's on good money and it's time he earned it with some substantial performances. We may only be Connacht, be there's certain standards the players must meet, alot didn't meet them yesterday, and Fetu'u has been in that category too often. Time for him to stand up and be counted

Funk It wrote:

salmson wrote:
From a personnel POV, I don't like the "hang Fetu" thing but a marker has to be set down for what happens when performance is unacceptable.

I think that everyone knows what a dangerous player Fetu is, in the same sense that we knew what an outstanding player Fionn Carr was when his defense used to get called into question (rightly or wrongly). As mentioned, I didn't see the game and I don't think for one second that an under par performance came down to one player.

Just to be clear: I have no problem with players screwing up. There was mention in this thread of Muldoon knocking on 4 catches in a row a few years back, and while Duffy caught everything yesterday he did nothing with it - ran three times leading to one accidental offside, one knockon, one penalty for holding on in contact. And that's before we talk about his kicking (read the post again, I already have). I'm certainly not playing favourites - I'm a fan of Fetu and think he got unwarranted abuse last year.

What is unacceptable is that after a few knockons he stopped jumping for the ball and repeatedly allowed it to bounce.

As for "under par performance came down to one player", you may have pulled that out of your backside but I didn't say it. I named 3 players in relation to kicking, called out Macca and the lineout - the lineout cost us the game, not Fetu, but there is a difference between honest incompetence and going awol - and said the back row didn't pull up any trees.

Where did the "O'Halloran was carrying an injury" come from? What's the source? If he was then fair enough, he should have been replaced. its of no benefit to the team or the player himself to leave him on the field. TOH is a fantastic player and he has no bigger fan than me but what i seen yesterday looked like complete disinterest in being there. I hope this was a once off as he is key to us stepping up.

merchantdon wrote: Where did the "O'Halloran was carrying an injury" come from? What's the source? If he was then fair enough, he should have been replaced. its of no benefit to the team or the player himself to leave him on the field. TOH is a fantastic player and he has no bigger fan than me but what i seen yesterday looked like complete disinterest in being there. I hope this was a once off as he is key to us stepping up.

The fact that he was down a few times receiving treatment would suggest so. He was down for a few minutes early on and never looked right after that

salmson wrote:

Funk It wrote:

salmson wrote:
From a personnel POV, I don't like the "hang Fetu" thing but a marker has to be set down for what happens when performance is unacceptable.

I think that everyone knows what a dangerous player Fetu is, in the same sense that we knew what an outstanding player Fionn Carr was when his defense used to get called into question (rightly or wrongly). As mentioned, I didn't see the game and I don't think for one second that an under par performance came down to one player.

As for "under par performance came down to one player", you may have pulled that out of your backside but I didn't say it. I named 3 players in relation to kicking, called out Macca and the lineout - the lineout cost us the game, not Fetu, but there is a difference between honest incompetence and going awol - and said the back row didn't pull up any trees.

Calm down let ya. Think you are only taking the segment of my comment to make it look more sinister. I never said you said it, just saying that I'm not blaming him solely for the loss in reference to your "hang Fetu" defense comment.

You might quote me on "blaming him solely" from this reply if that suits against your argument.

Funk It wrote: Think you are only taking the segment of my comment to make it look more sinister.

You quote single sentences from my posts twice (see, we can all do it, the delete button's great ain't it) and then say I'm taking segments of your posts out of context.... no, wait, I'm just wasting my breath here amn't I?

wasn't at the game due to a family engagement, so can't comment on the performance, but Rabo site says attendance was 3869? Weren't we expecting many more?

fatgav wrote: wasn't at the game due to a family engagement, so can't comment on the performance, but Rabo site says attendance was 3869? Weren't we expecting many more?

Yes you'd have hoped for better.

However, to be fair, it was a miserable evening, really steady drizzle, got soaked going to and from the car a few hundred yards down the road, no heavy shower but it made some rain in the 2-3 hours around game time, rain started at a bad time around 4.00.

There was no-one behind either goal (usually you'd have a good sprinking behind bohermore end, even though there was no mini-rugby last evening) or in the small uncovered terraced area (which would usually be relatively full on the greyhounds side.

Also our early season attendances never seem to be as good for whatever reason, as winter draws in generally people start turning their attention to the rugby. I believe a 6 / 6.30 kick off time would be more beneficial but overall you'd expect attendances to increase as the season progresses.

Looking on the positive side of things I remember us playing Ospreys at home on a miserable Friday evening on the first day of the season maybe 4 years ago and there was something like 829 which even at the time was very poor for Connacht.

Its nights like last night the investment in the clan stand pays its way. On the night you'd have been talking less than half that attendance at best before the Clan stand was there.

Borders no.2 wrote: On the night you'd have been talking less than half that attendance at best before the Clan stand was there.

Best first-day turnout I remember pre-Clan was about 1400 against Dragons a few years ago, which rather makes your point.

At least they're not ducking the issue:

www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/elwood-br...h-zebre-3217281.html

Anyone who turned up for that dross has my sympathies. Sounds like we just hadn't a clue how to control the match, and it's a crying shame Parks wasn't fit. It was precisely those kinds of matches that he was signed.

I'm not going to hang it all on Fets, but he can't be happy with his performance and he did himself no favours. But we've got depth now and Eric needs to send out a message, if you have a shocker you won't be asked to play the week after.

I got there late and missed the Fetu horror show, but the game was there to be won even at 13-0 given the wind. Not sure about the criticism of TOH. The ball didn't come near him, and I'm not sure I'd want a winger chasing garryowens up the centre when the opposition are clearly better at getting the ball quickly out wide.

Marmion did well for a debut. He is not quick enough at moving the ball - takes that irritating two steps before passing, but in the plus side he is no one trick pony - able to steal a few yards or box kick. He needs to improve his distribution, but not bad for a first outing.

Nikora's decision making was very poor at critical times. Poor decision making across the pitch is one of our most consistent flaws, but you really pay for it when the OH makes the wrong call. At either 13-6 or 13-9 we were going through the phases well inside their 22 when Nikora decided to punt it up and over for Griffin to catch inside the try line. Crazy decision and poorly executed too. Gav's decision making and execution wasn't the best either, some lousy kicking away of possession, but magnificent under the high ball.

Griffin wasn't troubled by hamstring from what I saw. He had someone fall awkwardly on him and it twisted his knee, but hopefully he should be ok. Not that he did a lot though.

It was one that shouldn't have been lost that was, and there'll be more of them this winter. We are still missing the killer instinct.

Very, very disappointing performance. The conditions obviously didn't help, and it actually goes to show how far we've come in the last few seasons, as we used to absolutely thrive in weather like that and now it doesn't suit our game at all. There were some extremely poor performances in the backs, Nikora looked like he didn't want to be there and his kicking was terrible. We just kept giving Cardiff the ball with both his and Marmion's pointless Garryowens that weren't chased with any conviction. I know it's difficult to play passing rugby in that weather but the backs never really got going and if there was a game-plan it just disappeared into a litany of errors. Didn't think much of Marmion to be honest, he's a little off this level at the moment and we could really have used Murphy or O'Donuhues experience towards the end. There was a 3 man overlap at one point when we were plugging away at their line and no-one spotted it. Even the usually reliable Duffy seemed to be suffering from headless chicken syndrome, running straight into Flavin for an accidental offside from a good position. Fetu will definitely be targeted with high balls for the rest of the season. The less said about his game the better. Apart from Macca's surprisingly anonymous performance I thought the pack were very good, Buckley especially had a good game and Rodney looked a lot sharper and fitter than last year when he came on. Faloon looks like he will be class for us. Still all credit to Cardiff, they took the few chances they had and defended well against our admittedly lacklustre attacks. Onwards and upwards..

After all the dust has settled here's my take on the game:
Positive:
- The scrum
- Good individual perfotmances from Marmion, Faloon and Fafita.

Negatives:
- Poor decision making. Why go for that penalty kick at the end of the 1st half when they should have taken a quick tap.
- Line out was all over the shop. Reynekes throwing isn't good enough.

A few other things irked me. When Griffin went down, he was hobbling around after and clearly in no shape to continue. Why was this let happen. With our line out in a shambles the decisionn was made to take off or hooker and our main line out target and bring on their replacements. This didn't work. Swifty, as much of a legend as he is, is just not able to go for the full 80 anymore and he shouldn't be expected to. He looked fit to drop after 65 mins.