Maybe they are a little young. But they need the experience. As Pat Lam says "If your good enough Your old enough" but you cant beat experience.
Remember also Rory, Caolin and Saba were playing and training with the under 20 squad for the inter pros and then last week they were in Dublin with the Ireland Under 20's and then bought back Wednesday evening to go to Wales.
I like the fact Connacht are giving their academy players time at the next level. Sure if senior players need the run out then give that to them but the most important thing is the long term development of the youth for the betterment of the Province.

A lot of our lads are very young players, I would have thought that we would have been looking at year 3 Academy lads and older for these games. We put players like Parata, Blade, Gaffney, Saba on the pitch. Part of me thinks that it is good to throw them in and another part of me says that is a big step up and it could set them back.

The bottom line is that we have lots of injuries to players who should be making up the core of the Eagles side and we need to be careful with the really young lads. The game this weekend will be another really tough one as well, Rotherham are riding high on the top of the English Championship. It won't be easy, I'm going to try and go support them, whatever the outcome.

Leinster won the B&I Cup last year and they are way ahead of us in terms of the reserves of talent at their disposal mostly academy guys but boosted also by players that were on the fringes of the senior squad.

clanman wrote: You'd have to wonder for some of the young guys if they can make it at a professional level, is the gap to far for them to bridge. getting hammered by Llannelli and Newcastle does'nt help. I guess maybe if we can get 1 player coming through from the accademy every yeatr maybe that's deemed a success, because that's all currently i can see happening

Impossible to judge from a fixture like that, I'm sure they did lot's of training in the lead up to the game but there is nothing in terms of preparation for a tough game like competitive matches, even if Leinster hadn't cancelled there were far too few game scheduled in the lead up. The injury list may have dictated that though the senior team taking priority of course.

In terms of player development I'd say we're easily on a par with the other provinces in terms of numbers coming through, and the fact it's off a fraction of their player bases makes it way more impressive...

It was the first game of the B&I cup so it usually gets some coverage. That said I didn't see anything on the Ulster Ravens. As for Carolan giving out fair play they deserved a kick in the ass and while I didn't expect them to win the game I didn't expect them to be beaten as badly either. Might be the best thing for them. They now realise the level they have to play at. Touch wood it's onwards and up-wards.

Does anyone else find it strange that the Indo and Irish Times both ran pretty negative pieces on the Eagles today?

www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/nigel-car...the-jersey-1.1559393


www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/fuming-ca...eagles-29657407.html

Not condoning the result, but there's a pretty flimsy correlation between the headline/content of the articles and the quotes from Carolan. Criticism, yes. Blasting? Hardly. I don't seem to recall much coverage of any B&I games previously. Don't see a journos name listed on the articles either.

<Conspiracy Theory>So is the new trend to attack the province via the Eagles when it can't be done due to good performance from the 1st XV? </Conspiracy Theory>

Mind you - looks like Conor O'Shea was "Fuming" and "Blasting" too - at least he is quoted as saying "I'm angry... I'm furious... I'm annoyed"!

You'd have to wonder for some of the young guys if they can make it at a professional level, is the gap to far for them to bridge. getting hammered by Llannelli and Newcastle does'nt help. I guess maybe if we can get 1 player coming through from the accademy every yeatr maybe that's deemed a success, because that's all currently i can see happening

connachtexile wrote: That's terrible. I know Llanelli are meant to be great but there's enough players with first team experience for them not be beaten by that big a result. You have to look at the senior players and ask some questions.

That was a very callow side (McSharry, Buckley and Kearney aside) and the group haven't played together for four or five weeks, whereas Llanelli are a league club side [Top Four AIL 1 equivalent] with half a dozen competitive games and two B&I Cup qualifiers under their belts...

The Llanelli side is easily a match on paper for the squad that was put out, but well drilled instead of cobbled together. And once the game started going away from them, a cobbled together side despite the individual talents is always likely to fold badly...

We've seen it with our senior side in the past on trips to Wales when we had injury crises.

If the first tier injured players had been available: Willie Faloon, Eoin Griffin, Matt Healy, Eoin McKeon, Ronan Loughney, Miah Nikora, Kyle Tonetti, and Nathan White or even the second tier Conor Finn, Shane Layden then the team heading to Scarlets would have been way, way stronger and been competitve. They aren't and we weren't...

That's terrible. I know Llanelli are meant to be great but there's enough players with first team experience for them not be beaten by that big a result. You have to look at the senior players and ask some questions.

Borders no.2 wrote: That's an extremely worrying result. Something like 11 tries by my calculations.

spot on.

paratro wrote: nothing else about the game

No match report yet.
www.llanellirugby.com/Match/Report/212917

That's an extremely worrying result. Something like 11 tries by my calculations.

nothing else about the game

Disappointing result
Llanelli 76, Connacht 14 (halftime 31-9)
Connacht scorers Try McShaz 48 mins. Penalties: Leader, Carty (2)
Buckley, McShaz both played 80 mins

Borders no.2 wrote: British & irish Cup Team v Connaght Eagles @ Parc Y Scarlets Saturday 12/10//13 k.off 2pm

15 Steff Evans 14 Kyle Evans13 Dylan Morgans 12 Adam Warren 11 Aaron Warren 10 Aled Thomas 9 Jak Evans

1 Shaun Hopkins 2 Darran Harris 3 Aled Hopkins 4 Carwyn Jones 5 Nathan White 6 Sion Bennett 7 Duane Eager (capt) 8 Sione Timani

16 Gareth Thomas 17 Craig Hawkins 18 Ben Leung 19 Llewellyn Jones 20 Scott Maynard 21 Josh Lewis 22 Dion Jones

Ah hes caught now, injured my ar*e, just wanted a crack at second row

Good to see McSharry and Buckley back getting some gametime. Both will be welcomed back.

Llanelli are 3rd in the Welsh Premiership and have 5 games under their belt winning 3 so they may be a bit more settled. Hopefully we can make some strides in this competition in the season ahead.