I think we all agree that this was a team shakedown, more than anything else. I hope lessons were learned and a bit of rust knocked off.

Great write up of last season, phat. Only got around to reading it now.

After watching some of the footage I feel pretty bad for anyone who paid to see a glorified training session, I can only hope at least some of the funds were necessary to pay for Grenoble to come over or something like that. Nice to see Dillane searching for chances to put in hits, other than that in the few minutes I struggled through :sick: there was very little to get excited about, but equally it did not appear to have been treated as a live game by any player so there's not much to learn from it.

As we said, it's more the absence of Heenan/JHW/Marmion/Henshaw/Roux/Muldowney which explains the lack of sharpness. We'll look different in September and even more in November, but possibly not in France next week.... Those friendlies are meant to build the squad, not the prime XV, in Lam's head...

Thanks Connachta, but I actually meant painful to watch rather than the quality of the video. We just look so light compared to Grenoble, I do not buy into the fact that a few weeks extra pre season training makes such a big difference. I hope that it was the reason and that we bounce back next week in France.

Not sure a clearer view of those highlights would do anyone any good. I'll put it down to it being the first time out against a side who are probably a couple of weeks ahead in preparation for the upcoming season and Connacht missing a number of key players.

You may change the quality of the video, on the bottom right, if it's part of the problem

Thanks for putting that up, but hard to watch !

dai.ly/x317pyr
Highlights. We have to work very hard on inside balls in defence..

sea_point wrote:

connachta wrote: I don't panick as only 6 players of my favourite XV played the first half, and only 1 in the 2nd half (White)

Yep, nowhere near our starting XV.useful outing for younger squad players though.

Add our main performers from last season Marmion, John Cooney, Henshaw, McSharry (not just back from injury), Buckley, Masterson, Muldowney, Healy, then also Ronaldson, Browne, Harris-Wright, Heffernan, Heenan etc.. and you're talking a completely different beast altogether...

And Quinn Roux!
The main real uncertainty is the trio Carty/Aki/Api, with Henshaw absent and if McSharry/Ronaldson haven't fully recovered, there might be holes in midfield... Pat's right to make them work together now, and not when the result counts on the board...

connachta wrote: I don't panick as only 6 players of my favourite XV played the first half, and only 1 in the 2nd half (White)

Yep, nowhere near our starting XV.useful outing for younger squad players though.

Add our main performers from last season Marmion, John Cooney, Henshaw, McSharry (not just back from injury), Buckley, Masterson, Muldowney, Healy, then also Ronaldson, Browne, Harris-Wright, Heffernan, Heenan etc.. and you're talking a completely different beast altogether...

I don't panick as only 6 players of my favourite XV played the first half, and only 1 in the 2nd half (White)

I've already posted this in the members section but in case anyone is still on the fence about joining

I was shocked by the scoreline, but I guess the main point is that Dillane and Marshall are able to step up at n°5/6, where we're short in number. And maybe SOB 2.0 in the second part of the season, when he gets some gametime with Eagles

23 euro was a ridiculous price for entry.

I have a season ticket, but went up with 4 mates. They probably go to 2 games a year, but had never been to a friendly before.

When i saw the price, I got embaressed. And asked the lads, listen will we just leave it.

Really poor approach from the Branch in my opinion, especially with the day and time the game was on.

I know the reason they put the game at 5.15 now, obviously they didn't want anyone to see us play at this stage but still they got a decent crowd.

19-52 in the finish. Disappointing but pretty much as I expected at this stage. Was only 14-19 at half time but lots of changes for the 2nd half. We were short a lot of players and the lads who had to come in aren't at this level at least at this stage in their development.

One thing I did take from this evening, if we are going to have a look at Conor McKeon at out half we will need to protect him better defensively or he will be continuously run over.

Grenoble played some good stuff and scored some good tries. A lot of them were soft but they took the chances well and dominated us physically particularly in the 2nd half.

Shane O'Leary hadn't a great kicking outing when he came on but his wayward kick to touch provided the highlight of the game in the lead up to our 3rd try. Miscued it but it bounced in goal over the heads of the Grenoble players and into our possession 5 metres from their line. A try eventually resulted. Could be a handy way of bypassing the lineout if we perfect it

We'll have to see where we are at for Munster in 2 weeks time and that will tell us more. We are still 4 weeks away from Dragons. Lots to work on in the meantime.

At least we didn't get drenched wet like any other evening this summer

how did this game work out ?
Disappointed I missed it, don't get to see our boys in sunshine to often.