You look at Leinster last night - behind, the likes of Fanning and Macken who wouldn't make our bench in the team, and they put 10 points on the Ospreys while they had their hooker in the bin. That's pure desire, allied to an unshakeable belief that because you have a blue shirt on you're better than everyone else. Unfortunately in that regards we seem to have the opposite opinion of ourselves

But to be honest Porterbelly, I don't see how you expect leadership from any of those players in the last quarter of a game. Wilko and White were subbed, Muldoon has stated he dislikes the captaincy, Duffy wasn't a success as captain, and the likes of Swift and George clearly are not captaincy material. Most of these guys have spent a decade getting badly beat, I think we need to be looking at players from outside that history (Clarke, White, Faloon, Marmion, Parks).

Anyway, I'm not getting too down after Friday, we'll see how we go next week. One team or other will be teetering on the edge of crisis after that one.

And everyone, what's with all the TOH hate? I know he carries himself like one of the Kearnashians, and he certainly wasn't mistake free on Friday, but what about the smashing of Cuthbert, the try saving interception, the workrate? I thought he was the pick of the backs, perhaps Marmion excepted.

Exactly, it's the lack of fight and intensity that irritates me. Lam has put on the record that he understands the parameters of the job in terms of squad ability etc, and that we need to be at it every week to survive. If it wasn't Zebre last week we would have been beaten.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept using the referee as an excuse or the fact that it was an away game. Bullshit as far as I'm concerned. Are we ever going to be taken seriously with that attitude? If you watched Leinster last night with a very inexperienced bunch of players, they were giving it socks to stay in the game. Not taking a step back, not dipping back into a comfort zone that seems to be prevalent in Connacht. 'Ah we're not expected to win this' attitude. It's time we snapped out of it.

In terms if leadership, if you compare the amount of caps between the 2 sides it's night and day. The likes of White, Duffy, Swifty, Wilko, Muldoon and Naoupu have huge experience, where was this evident.

Unless we up the intensity massively, improve our discipline, show a bit of heart and pride and cut out silly, inexcusable mistakes then Ulster will have their merry way with us next week.

This is a make or break season for us in my opinion. With the revelation about the debts, then unless we justify it this season, the IRFU will come down with an iron fist. And so far we're not remotely justifying it.

How did TOH last the full 80 minutes let alone start ahead of Carr He has not been playing well for a while. Parks looks his age on the pitch too slow and a lot of questions about his defence. There was no leadership on the pitch Friday night first 15 we got quick ball and scored our try after that the work rate dropped. Connacht need to play the conditions and earn the right to go wide. There was a lack of fight which is the most disappointing

Our loose heads were binding correctly and the Cardiff tighthead kept pulling them down by the arm. he is supposed to bind on the body, not the arm but he got away with it the whole game.

TOH was pinged for an arm on the back of a Cardiff player, I don't even think he pushed yet healy was clearly shoved and knocked to the ground when chasing a kick and we got nothing.

The ref was poor, but he wasn't the reason we lost, he may have cost us a bonus point though his decision to give a full pen as opposed to a free kick for a non straight at the scrum was bizarre.

Parks is a fine player, but he never takes the ball on himself and always passes or kicks so tis makes defending against him a lot easier, he needs to keep the defense honest as they can simply drift across, also dan just don't tackle--at all.

Its a pity his kicking was askew as it would have been a diff game had Parks kicked to his usual standard.

After the start that they have had, Ulster will be up for it.......... They sure did drop some balls this weekend !

This will be a very important game for us.

Jaysus I must have been watching a different game to alot of people on here. I thought Connacht played very well away from Home against Cardiff. lost by was it 10 points in the end??? Ok there is room for improvement but right up until rodney got sent of i believed there was still a chance for us to win the game. I think the ref was the ruining of us......

I thought George (cant spell his surname) was excellent for us.

Other posts about Parks not playing well, fair enough but look do not doubt it for one second but he is our prized possession in the squad at the moment...Class apart from any one else in his position in the squad, great head on his shoulders.

As already said we are only 2 games in we have won 1 lost 1(away in wales), lets now get behind the lads come saturday and make Galway a fortress!!

clan clover wrote: If anybody has recorded the game I would suggest

deleting the evidence immediately

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.

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.

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! :silly:

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.

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.

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.

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.....

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!

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.