Lovely day, sun shining, low wind.

Feck.

gannon has the flu, eoin mckeon on the bench

9. Marmion
10. Parks
11. Griffen
12. Mata
13. Henshaw
14. O'Halloran
15. Carthy

like to see this backline given a go in rabo carthy should be accomadated give him a bit of time at fullback to learn and his kicking and tactical play alongside parks at 10 could be of massive benefit, mata to make the big runs henshaw to exploit the space.

The Galway Advertiser
Due to phenomenal demand for tickets ahead of tomorrow’s Heineken Cup clash, a decision has been made to increase the capacity of the Sportsground stadium.

The Galway Advertiser Over the last few days they have surpassed the 7,500 mark and are closing in on 8,000 tickets sold today. In order to accommodate the extra demand, terraces behind each goal post will be erected in the morning. It is expected that just under 9,000 supporters will descend on the Sportsground for the 6pm kick off.

The Galway Advertiser The Clan Terrance and Main Stand are now sold out but there are some tickets remaining behind each goal post, with a very limited number of children’s tickets available. All children must have a ticket and these are €10.

Tickets will be available at the ticket booth on College Road from 10am tomorrow morning so to avoid disappointment, get down early.

ummm, wrote: Diom, quick request,

can you change the team sheets to something like

<strong>Connacht:</strong> Henderson, O'Halloran, ....
<strong>Harlequins:</strong> Brown, Williams, ....

That table format plays havoc with the App (which hasn't gone away, still improving before sending off to Apple for a second go) and it doesn't display the articles nicely.

Alright. The table format is just what we were using previously... looks nice.

Will change it now.

EDIT: Done.

The Quins will not be caught out in this one, but it's as important as a game can be this early in the tournament for them. Lose it and it's an uphill battle to top the pool so if Connacht can manage an early lead maybe the seeds of doubt creep in and the Quins start to press. I'm anticipating a physical game and Connacht will need to weather an early barrage from the Quins with a mind to chasten their hosts. A Connacht win will, as others have said, in all likelihood rank among their greatest victories. With that in mind, I will settle for a complete team performance which has been absent most of this season and a bonus point.

Diom, quick request,

can you change the team sheets to something like

Connacht: Henderson, O'Halloran, ....
Harlequins: Brown, Williams, ....

That table format plays havoc with the App (which hasn't gone away, still improving before sending off to Apple for a second go) and it doesn't display the articles nicely.

I put the preview article up. I got a bit carried away I think!

COME ON CONNACHT!

This has the potential to be a bad tempered affair but hopefully it won't drift that way. As someone said above, a win tomorrow would eclipse last year as the best Connacht win IMO, because I don't believe any other top, top team has come here in the mental space that Harlequins are coming this year. They are fully focused on this game and they are a better side now than they were then. We shouldn't win, but we still might. Quins, like Leinster aren't feared. Can't wait!

I'd prefer to see Johnny start at openside for this one. Especially against that back-row and up against the relatively inexperienced Botica

I usually get it wrong so i'm going to go with quins hammering us ( i didn't think we'd get anything out of the recent Leinster game)

CMON CONNACHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

swift4prez wrote:

menacethedenis wrote: I think quin's form is too good for us at the moment. I don't think we'll get a result from this one but I really hope I'm wrong

quins form? lost 2/3. we won 2/3 plus were on a longer winning run in the heineken cup then them

Sorry I didn't realise form was judged by ticks in the 'W' column....

First run midweek got >270,000 but I don't know what the figurs for the repeat were.

That's a huge number. My friend was the producer for the Ras Tailteann documentary that was on the week before and that only got 90,000 people so it was a big hike indeed. Gotta say I was really digging those sports documentaries that were on TG4 every Wednesday.

P.S Think its a strong Connacht team so hopefully we can get something out of it.

Harlequins

15 Mike Brown
14 Tom Williams
13 Matt Hopper
12 Jordan Turner-Hall
11 Sam Smith
10 Ben Botica
9 Danny Care

1 Joe Marler
2 Rob Buchanan
3 James Johnston
4 Ollie Kohn
5 George Robson
6 Maurie Fa'asavalu
7 Chris Robshaw
8 Nick Easter

16 Dave Ward
17 Mark Lambert
18 Will Collier
19 Charlie Matthews
20 Tom Guest
21 Karl Dickson
22 Rory Clegg
23 Seb Stegmann

Its a huge ask but above any team these lads & Connacht in general have proved time and again we have no fear of playing Harlequins in a competitive game. We haven't beaten them too often but all games have been close run things.

Harlequins were deserving premiership winners but both teams know each other inside out and of the top teams we could be playing they don't have the same status / history as say a Toulouse or Leicester coming to the Sportsground where psychologically we'd be beaten before the kick off.

Big issue is discipline, Nigel Owens was a good ref for us the last time, we got away with a couple of borderline penalty tries.

However, we should view this as a massive opportunity. For all their talk Harlequins are worried about this one. If we can hang tight going into the last 20 some doubts might start to creep into their mind.

Realistically we are about +8 with the bookies. Its very important even if the game starts to run away a bit that we hang in there and try and dig out at least a bonus point which could be extremely significant at the end of the pool.

Above all tomorrow should have the makings of a superb atmosphere. I'd expect a better atmosphere than even the Toulouse game last year.

Agreed. Can't really see it happening twice on the trot. Listened to John Muldoon on newstalk last night and detected a realistic approach. Quins will arrive with a steely professional approach to this. I don't believe they will be distracted by talk of a grudge. I'll tell you this. If we win tomorrow - it will be the biggest win I will have seen in the 8 or so years I've been going to the sportsground.
So, you never know.
We've seen the team dig deep a few times over the last few years. Maybe tomorrow. Won't be for the want of support (or losing my own voice again).