If Eric had won the pro 12 in his first year and we regressed badly each successive season he'd get the equivalent abuse Kidney gets. It's not really comparable.

rossie wrote: deccie didnt either and is also leaving!

my point was that supporters are far more forgiving of their own players and coaches and apply a different set of standards.

You really need to get over the Kidney thing Rossie Take him back as Munster coach if ye want I think you'll find he'll struggle to improve on anything McGahan or Penney has done with the players at his disposal.

Even if Eric wasn't leaving I think the pressure would be on him at the end of this season. He has helped develop the team in many areas but imo the way we play the game is in the main predictable and outdated.

Having said that the lack of intensity from Connacht in the first quarter was hugely disappointing, we were well off the pace and all parties have to take their portion of the blame for that one.

I appreciate how much time and work Eric has put into this province for over 25 or so years at this stage. However, I think he has made the right decision for himself and for the team at this stage, the team needs new direction and a fresh voice.

It also needs more leaders on the park. A lot will rest on the shoulders of Craig Clarke to try and change the mindset among some players especially away from home.

Porterbelly wrote:

columoc wrote:

rossie wrote: you all are very forgiving of eric and the coaches! if it was ireland you would have kidney lynched by now.

Imo, most of the blame for yesterday lies with the coaches. They pick and prepare a team. If the team ignore the gameplan or don't make an effort then its their fault. But the team did make an effort, at least most of them, shown by their brave defending, especially at the end. But this team, from the off, were unprepared for the game yesterday, both game plan wise and mentally. EE is a good guy, but not a pro coach. Sorry, and I wish him the best.

Hopefully, Pat Lam can get more out of these guys next season.

I'm sorry but Eric didn't knock on balls left, right and centre, nor was he ridiculously slow coming out in the defensive line.

Obviously the coaches have to ship some of the blame, but our attitute and basic errors were down to the players. There was enough experience and quality in our team to give Munster a challenge but we never even bothered to turn up

Yep, the players have to take ownership when they're on the park. It wasn't the selection issues that was disconcerting for the first fifteen minutes, it was the lack of fight. There was a lot of experience still in that squad and in the starting personnel, not one of them delivered the leadership performance O'Connell did and that was required.

deccie didnt either and is also leaving!

my point was that supporters are far more forgiving of their own players and coaches and apply a different set of standards.

columoc wrote:

rossie wrote: you all are very forgiving of eric and the coaches! if it was ireland you would have kidney lynched by now.

Imo, most of the blame for yesterday lies with the coaches. They pick and prepare a team. If the team ignore the gameplan or don't make an effort then its their fault. But the team did make an effort, at least most of them, shown by their brave defending, especially at the end. But this team, from the off, were unprepared for the game yesterday, both game plan wise and mentally. EE is a good guy, but not a pro coach. Sorry, and I wish him the best.

Hopefully, Pat Lam can get more out of these guys next season.

I'm sorry but Eric didn't knock on balls left, right and centre, nor was he ridiculously slow coming out in the defensive line.

Obviously the coaches have to ship some of the blame, but our attitute and basic errors were down to the players. There was enough experience and quality in our team to give Munster a challenge but we never even bothered to turn up

rossie wrote: you all are very forgiving of eric and the coaches! if it was ireland you would have kidney lynched by now.

Imo, most of the blame for yesterday lies with the coaches. They pick and prepare a team. If the team ignore the gameplan or don't make an effort then its their fault. But the team did make an effort, at least most of them, shown by their brave defending, especially at the end. But this team, from the off, were unprepared for the game yesterday, both game plan wise and mentally. EE is a good guy, but not a pro coach. Sorry, and I wish him the best.

Hopefully, Pat Lam can get more out of these guys next season.

Honestly there's not much point blaming the coaches when half (all?) of them are leaving at the end of the season. But fwiw I think Elwood and his staff has to take at least some of the blame of constant garryowens and kicking away possession by connacht, and as mentioned earlier picking naopu at second row and muldoon at 8 made no sense and probably cost us something in the scrum

Agreed if this was the first time trying these guys in these positions you'd go fair enough but Muldoon has never had a good game at 8. George rarely in the second row. Repeating the same mistakes over and over again is asinine and shows that Elwood hasn't learned from past experiences. I know we have a small team but McKeown and McCarthy were there and while I don't think it would have made a difference in the score it might not have being such a capitulation.

Honestly there's not much point blaming the coaches when half (all?) of them are leaving at the end of the season. But fwiw I think Elwood and his staff has to take at least some of the blame of constant garryowens and kicking away possession by connacht, and as mentioned earlier picking naopu at second row and muldoon at 8 made no sense and probably cost us something in the scrum.

you all are very forgiving of eric and the coaches! if it was ireland you would have kidney lynched by now.

there was optimism here beforehand and thats to be expected from supporters. afterall without hope there would be no interest. reality though is that connacht are in process of evolving from a poor team into an average one. there will be days liike this along the way particularly away. consistancy at home is the foundation that all teams are built on and this team still has to achieve that. thats my hope for next season and rest of this. win the home games regardless of the opposition. when we are achieving that consistantly then travel with confidence.

Once again I got excited about a possible upset and once again brought back to earth with a bump. :dry: I missed the first half but if it was anything as bad as the second its just as well.

That's four nils this season, compared to none the previous three years. Whether losing by big scores like scarlets 58-10 or edinburgh 62-13 (09/10 season) is any better is debatable, but it does make you wonder if things are actually improving or if Connacht just managed to catch out the big boys more often this season. Two of those were under bad circumstances but I'm not sure that should excuse not even scoring a couple of penalties.

As porterbelly says, 3 weeks to plan for this game and to have this result, ridiculous.

That performance was completely unacceptable

What have we been doing for the last 3 weeks? Rubbish, complete rubbish

Don't think anyone comes out with credit from that game. Kearney's yellow was deserved, it was a ridiculous piece of play and he should be let know that. The replay clearly showed he carried on and raised a shoulder into ROG, stonewall yellow.

Naoupu wasn't even interested, that's 2 years in a row away to Munster he has been terrible. Faloon tried hard but made some poor handling mistakes and gave away pens. JHW tends to be a penalty machine, he needs to sort out his technique at the breakdown. Muldoon was pretty anonymous. In the backs, Henshaw was ok, but his passing technique is horrible and some of his decision making leaves alot to be desired. Really needs to work on his skills. Murphy tried hard but he was out of his depth.

With all the experience in our team a performance like that is just not on. Only positive I can say is that our defence was good at times, but even still our defensive line was very slow and Munster made metres at will once they put it through the phases.

As for us in attack, brutal. Couldn't put 2 phases together. It's an old habit that creeps in every now and then. Silly handling errors destroying our game. Looked like a J2 team in attack.

Eric deserves more than this

columoc wrote:

sea_point wrote: Wouldn't be as hard on Kearney (as say I would be on JHW for the penalty for last points of the first half) for his yellow the replay showed he was sucker-punched by the experience of ROG who could have avoided the contact but saw a big lump in his way and not much chance of regathering his kick. It was just a bit of inexperience really, when he see's the video he'll be kicking himself.

If you get a chance, see the slo mo which they replayed, he moved in and raised shoulder...he meant it ...maybe inexperience, but in a well coached team this behaviour isn't tolerated

yee are both right on this. Rog played him and kearney was more than happy to facilitate. on the whole id agree with seapoint though. he will learn from this. action of a frustrated young man whos team mates were mentally still in galway.

sea_point wrote: Wouldn't be as hard on Kearney (as say I would be on JHW for the penalty for last points of the first half) for his yellow the replay showed he was sucker-punched by the experience of ROG who could have avoided the contact but saw a big lump in his way and not much chance of regathering his kick. It was just a bit of inexperience really, when he see's the video he'll be kicking himself.

If you get a chance, see the slo mo which they replayed, he moved in and raised shoulder...he meant it ...maybe inexperience, but in a well coached team this behaviour isn't tolerated

Wouldn't be as hard on Kearney (as say I would be on JHW for the penalty for last points of the first half) for his yellow the replay showed he was sucker-punched by the experience of ROG who could have avoided the contact but saw a big lump in his way and not much chance of regathering his kick. It was just a bit of inexperience really, when he see's the video he'll be kicking himself.

Ok, so first the positives:
1. POC played the full match and looked good. if he keep this up and stays healthy he made play himself onto the Lions.
2. We prevented a bonus point

The negatives:

No ambition nor evidence of a gameplan, evidenced by the amount of turnovers due to isolated players.
No line speed, especially in first half.
Immense stupidity from Kearney, he should have been replaced immediately after the yellow card.
Overall lack of intensity and concentration - losing ball in contact regularly

Players bear some responsibility, but this was am ill prepared team, both physically and mentally.
Pat Lam has a huge task to overcome the shocking performances against the Provinces, Zero pots, Null points in 3 games. Awful. Mindset completely wrong.

Few winners, Faloon did ok, Marmion should not have been replaced, Henshaw ok, Poolman ok, but gave away penalties. Dan ok. Murphy ok.
Forwards weak on the ball. Duffy poor.

So disappointing, Munster were solid but no more.
No cover in the rucks again for 3rd try, this happened a few times last year - not learning.
Grrrr.

How exactly did our backs do well? All I saw was route one crash ball, with no support, no offloads in the tackle, no attempts to look for mismatches, no overlaps or other form of numerical advantage created, but lots of lateral shovelling and multiple wayward passes that sucked the life out of the few positive positions we found ourselves in.

We had multiple turnovers at rucks, but how many of those were because our backs weren't in support?

And don't get me started on our forwards!