Darragh507 wrote: Anything from conneely??

Worked hard, which was good to see because he looked pretty lazy with the Irish 20's

Made alot of tackles

Anything from conneely??

Good to see Healy coming through with all his injuries last year he didn't get to make a huge impression but if he stays injury free he will be a good asset.

Dare I ask how the academy guys did?

apparently, on both matches altogether, we could be at least a little thankful to Eric Elwood for his AIL recruits last year : JP Cooney and Murphy are ok as squad members, Healy and Fafita could even be more....

Positives:
Muldowney, Griff, Healy, Carr. Competitive 1st half

Negatives:
The good TOH did in the 1st half was completely undone in the 2nd due to stupid errors and getting burned by one of their 2nd rows. Defense was piss poor in the 2nd half. Lineouts were all over the place. No one pushing for 10 behind Parks. Offloading for the sake of it and throwing 3 simple intercepts.

Just as an add on to the new scrum laws, would be a bit worried for JP Cooney. Couldn't take the hit at all and folded in after the hit every time. Could have been pinged a few times but Clancy gave him the benefit of the doubt and a bit of time to recover. I'd imagine in competitive games, refs won't be as lenient.

rossie wrote: Thoughts on the new scrum laws lads? Read a few reports from the bledislow cup game and as v argues and got a very negative response. Lots of freekicks for crooked feeds. Similar in sports ground?

Restes, Freekicks, Penalties. Plus ca change....

Thoughts on the new scrum laws lads? Read a few reports from the bledislow cup game and as v argues and got a very negative response. Lots of freekicks for crooked feeds. Similar in sports ground?

first half was acceptable, we held on to the ball a lot and im assuming that there was a tactic being employed of not kicking the ball and to work it out of defence. I thought the scrum was solid and defensively we were sound and looked like we might create something with the ball we had.

Salmson have to completely disagree with you re Rodney, the lad simply cant scrummage and was either penalised or obliterated in the scrum.

In the second half the defensive line disappeared altogether, they stood off the wasps attack and this led to nothing but trouble, first up tackles were not made and the line was breached and gains made with ease against us.

Too many basic mistakes, poor defense even allowing for the multitude of changes.

Frank still craps across the line, and POD was aimless at times, Rodney is a liability at scrum time and didn't see anything at 10 that would frighten Parks.

Arrived full of hope after the Castre highlights, left very worried after the 2nd half display.

As a aside I thought Clancy had only an ok game, the scrums are still a mess and the scrum halves still put it in crooked without censure. thought he went to a pen try very quick but seemingly he had warned us that it was on the cards.

Not very good at all, major improvement to do. I'd have to factor in that we made too many changes, circa 38 players used so very little chance to develop any patterns or rhythm.

Rodney was at fault for penalty try? Gave away 4 pens on our own line

Forwards were very very one paced. Zero penetration. Fair enough Loughs made alot of carries but he made no real gains. Same as Sean Henry. Stopped in our tracks.

The only forward who stood out for me was Fifita, for the fact that he physically put himself about and made some massive hits. He also carried twice and it took 3 to take him down after gaining 3/4 metres. Not enough lads doing this.

Griffin looked very sharp. Healy has something about him. Sluggish everywhere else. Dave heffernan has alot to learn about playing hooker. He was standing at the back of the lineout ready to lift a man and had to be told on both occasions by his own teammates to get out of there because the non throwing hooker isn't in the lineout. That's not really acceptable at this level

I thought Rodney did very well. The scrum was being marched back until he came on but it stiffened up significantly when he came on for Loughs, he also looked fitter than he's ever been and put in some great tacklesvg. Thought Cooney did fine in the second half too.

Lineout was a mess for both sides (misthrows from Connacht, repeated crooked throws from Wasps, wind was brisk and straight down the field), and once we'd established something approaching parity in the scrum that was a lottery, penalties and free kicks both ways.

Connacht butchered several chances in the first half, weren't in the game in the second. Carr was very good, continually brought in off the wing to look for half breaks and offloads. Couple of thumping counter rucks from him, including one that slowed down Wasps ball the ruck before the blockdown try. Murphy and POD played well at scrum half, and in the first half we were on top at the breakdown. Forwards showed some nice hands at times.

Against that: lots of anonymous performances, the kids looked just that, defending was porous, no cutting edge from any of the wingers (Carr excepted), none of the 3 fly halves made a play for Parks' jersey, 4 or 5 interceptions from passes that were never on (various culprits), Browne is too light for lock and Muldowney is no tight-head lock.

I'll finish with some good news: Clarke was interviewed at half time and said he'd be looking for game time next week at Newcastle. Oh, and He. Is. F*****g. Huge.

Not the most impressive outing this evening. Wasps really could have had another 3 or 4 tries. Defensively it was worrying with a lot of first up tackles missed and a couple of very simple tries conceded. However, we were far from full strength at any stage and with a lot of changes throughout the game it was always going to tell against Wasps who were treating the game as close to a full hit out.

There were some positive signs in Connacht trying to keep the ball in hand though and a lot of the young players got a run out and showed positive signs. We have another run out next week and we have a lot of players to come back. When we get our best team on the pitch I think we'll give problems to most teams. However, the defensive errors need to be reduced greatly and our defensive systems need to be better.

I'm hoping Nathan White will be available for selection for the first game. Rodney is slowly improving but at this level he's still out of his depth. Give him the 3 jersey in the A team for the season and maybe he can prove himself at B&I Cup level but at senior level we can't continue with that experiment in the short term at least.

Finished 31-7 to Wasps, Griffin got a chargedown try for us. No idea how the match panned out overall though

Could some of you watch closely to Fionn Carr in his defensive tasks and JP Cooney in general? Thank by advance!

Ha, I'll get me coat!

Cheers for that, Westport. For some reason, I was convinced that it was yesterday.

Currently watching Aus v NZ. Lovely try from NZ already - 0-7 after 4 minutes.

Kick off is 5pm today