I notice the split in opinion appears to be between long time posters(for lam) and the newer lads(against). Diehards v new bees perhaps! Lol.
There is merit to both sides of the argument IMO. Does he deserve more time? Yes sort of.
Is the end of the season too late for Connacht? Yes if he doesn't turn it around.

As pointed out he has improved aspects of play so he has talents as a coach. He also has made lots of mistakes and his opinion of talented locally produced players is worrying.

The situation connacht find themselves in reminds me of sale sharks and the dragons last season. Bryan red path was struggling in his first season in charge of sharks. Steve diamond stepped in as DOR above red path and together thet turned around the sharks season. Edwards and the dragons had a terrible season last season. This season they appoint Lynn Jones( I think that's first name) above Darren Edwards as DOR and they are 7th playing good rugby and really tough to beat at home.

This is the approach that is like to see Connacht take but noe not at end of season. Mazda deal is up soon and fans are drifting away. European qualification based on merit will be in place very soon. We can't afford to wait.
I was as much against EOS as anyone when he was mentioned for Connacht job previously. Since then I've heard him on Radio and TV regularly and I'm impressed by his knowledge and attention to detail. Connacht could do worse.
Either way Connacht need an experienced DOR who knows the league preferably to work with Lam. There is too much at stake IMO.

murph13 wrote: 'Some of our play has been excellent' ..... the majority has been poor to woeful, the least you can expect is some spirit, we've always had that and always will I hope. Can't escape the fact that we have won only two matches so far, both against Zebre, not good enough simple as that. If we are making such Lam inspired progress where are the results? Which players from Elwood's squad have really made progress under Lam this year? As for expecting too much Lam has been here since March, had a full pre season and a better squad to work with this year, so far he has produced nothing.

Personally I wouldn't judge Nigel on the Eagles results, those matches are about developing players more than anything else, never the same side one week to the next, he has shown he can develop talent with the Academy, I'd like to see him given a go, with Dan alongside with all his experience it couldn't be any worse

So you'll judge Lam on results but not Carolan?! And when has the first team been lucky enough to have the same players fit and available for selection week in, week out? If Connacht were being judged solely on results we'd have been wound up a long time ago. And if you haven't seen the massive improvement in Rodney and the continued improvement in Marmion, Henshaw, Poolman, Harris-Wright & McKeon then I don't know what you're looking at.

Having only seen the televised games this season I'm not qualified to give a detailed analysis of Connacht current situation but, having watched the previous two seasons, it does seem to me that mental preparation and attitude on a consistent week in week out basis is a big issue within this club. Players and coaches have come and gone but this problem has remained. No one doubts Connacht ability to give the big names a game and occasionally beat them but week in week out? Same applies to national team which is why I'm not getting too excited about yesterday.

Actually, I take that back, I was going to say Muldowney left a huge gap for their third try, but watch their 12. Clarke is on the edge of the ruck just on the posts, 12 grabbed him and pulled him out of the way creating the huge hole they went through.

Ok, I missed it, so I can't really blame the ref for missing it. But disappointed there was little fight from Clarke about it.

sorry lads last saturday was tripe...muldowney not at six again please- he was finished at 40 ; why the heck cant we pick kearney and give him a shot?

on the positive side the two players who came on should start the next day - locks and carr whilst mcshaz looked very good.

ronaldson was good with the boot but he needs a run of games to cut out the basic errors ie. kicking on the full etc

duffy cannot start at full back the next day - sorry gavin but no time for sentimentality here far too slow and predictable in attack ...leader at fullback - (he's got a great kick on him there was one clerance in the second half where he reached the halfway line to alleviate pressure - he looks good also defensively thus far)

i do feel we will click but it in mind and sorry to say we should be planning for next season already (by that i mean hang onto everybody and not have continuous upheavel year on year) and give the heineken the best shot we can....

'Some of our play has been excellent' ..... the majority has been poor to woeful, the least you can expect is some spirit, we've always had that and always will I hope. Can't escape the fact that we have won only two matches so far, both against Zebre, not good enough simple as that. If we are making such Lam inspired progress where are the results? Which players from Elwood's squad have really made progress under Lam this year? As for expecting too much Lam has been here since March, had a full pre season and a better squad to work with this year, so far he has produced nothing.

Personally I wouldn't judge Nigel on the Eagles results, those matches are about developing players more than anything else, never the same side one week to the next, he has shown he can develop talent with the Academy, I'd like to see him given a go, with Dan alongside with all his experience it couldn't be any worse

Some thoughts on that video, and I'll say in advance I wasn't there so I can only make specific comments rather than on how the game as a whole went, so I'll try to stay away from general thoughts about overall performance, even though I was listening on the radio.

1. Leader caught very badly for that first try, we coughed up a soft one. I did't think the decision to start him ahead of Carr was right and while you can't judge players on a single play that try compared to Carr's big run later are in stark contrast to one another.

That being said Carr had fresh legs against a tiring Scarlets, he'll be disappointed the out-half chased him down.

Also I'm not blaming Leader entirely for that try, White was jogging instead of plugging that huge hole Scarlets coasted through as well.

2. Ronaldson's kicks scare me. Reminds me of NOC booting balls far too high. You don't want to have AR's not giving conversions/penalties because they're unsure. Just get them between the sticks, lad.

3. That second shove for the try off the maul was epic. The forwards as a whole deserve praise for that.

5. Their third try was even softer than the first one. Too much ball watching. Serious loss of concentration for that score, and that's not acceptable when you're on your own goal line.

6. What happened to 4?

7. Death to whoever thinks having teams wearing green and red on a dark night makes for easy viewing. I'm colourblind and could barely make out who's who on the pitch.

8. Last but definitely not least, we all need to say a massive congrats to Swifty on his 250th cap.

menacethedenis wrote:

salmson wrote: You forgot that the scrum's much better too.

I'm putting that strictly down to Rodney

Rodney for Ireland?!

salmson wrote: You forgot that the scrum's much better too.

I'm putting that strictly down to Rodney

You forgot that the scrum's much better too.

This get rid of Pat stuff is nonsense, but there's no hiding the fact that Saturday's performance was unacceptable. Against Saracens/Zebre/Leinster/Glasgow we had more injuries and still put in a performance in all those games, so Scarlets was a big step back for us.

Of the starting XV I'd hope only Wilko, Clarke, Heenan, Healy, McSharry and Griffin would be satisfied with their performances. Henry, Duffy, and Muldowney were particularly poor I thought.

murph13 wrote: have you really seen anything on the pitch this season that gives you any grounds to think Lam is moving us forward?

Plenty. Some of our play has been excellent. Offloading in the tackle is better. Our lineout has vastly improved from last year. We haven't clicked yet for a full 80 minutes but we've been close (Saracens). It's far, far too early to expect much more than that from a new coach and a small, injury-hit and, let's be honest, limited in some areas, squad.

murph13 wrote: performances and selection are back from the Bradley dark ages.

In what sense? Saturday's mid-game performance was the only aspect of the season (on-pitch) so far that harks back to those days if you ask me.

murph13 wrote:
I'd send him on his way and appoint Nigel Carolan and Dan McF, they know the players and know what Connacht is all about

Carolan was a great player but from what I've seen of the Eagles in the last 2 seasons I'd have serious reservations about his coaching at first team level.

Don't agree that making a change now is ludicrous Menace, have you really seen anything on the pitch this season that gives you any grounds to think Lam is moving us forward? That's despite having players like Clark, Heenan etc added to what was already a decent squad. The practicalities may well be difficult, especially financially, but Lam has to go and sooner rather than later.

The fact is we have beaten Zebre twice this season and that's it, bottom of the league and performances and selection are back from the Bradley dark ages. If we don't turn things around it will have a wider impact, players wanting to leave, a struggle to bring players in, feck all chance of replacing our sponsor when they leave at the end of the season, season ticket sales will be hit for next year, not looking good if you ask me.

I'd send him on his way and appoint Nigel Carolan and Dan McF, they know the players and know what Connacht is all about, Lam hasn't got a clue from what we've seen so far. Would be cost effective and no long wait to find a new coach too. If we had a CEO do you think we'd be hanging around so long? Sears didn't seem to hang around making changes if they were needed, I reckon we miss a bit of that

I was quite optimistic after the first ten minutes as I thought it was our best opening to a game this season. And though we raised it again for the last 20 minutes, the 50 minutes inbetween were incredibly poor. Probably the worst I've seen us play since Bradley was in charge. Calling for Lam's head is ludicrous. Judge him at the end of the season. We can't even replace our CEO like, what on earth makes you think we'd do any better if we get rid of Pat. It was the same a couple of years ago when we were on that terrible run. Plenty of people calling for Elwood to leave and we ended up having a good season all things considered. Patience lads.

Couldn't agree more Murph13. This is a results-based sport. Lam's teams haven't been able to but a win for a season and a half now.

ummm, wrote: Ok, so we have witness testimony on the whereabouts of TOH on the night of the Scarlet's match, but so far he has no alibi for the afternoon when JFK was shot.

We need to get to the bottom of this. Or at the very least drag it out to the point where it becomes painful.

We don't know where he was the night of the bailout either....