Shelflife wrote: Nope that's a whole different story, involving cane wielding night club owners and an underground Christian fundamentalist network !!

Literally underground!

I've learned a lot in my various trips to France, but it's been mainly about the virtues of Magret de Canard and the perils of Grimbergen Double. If I'd known that I was also subliminally absorbing wisdom regarding the machinations of the front row, I'd have had my CV in to BT Sport long ago.[/quote]

I nearly coughed up a lung laughing when I read this. Thanks for brightening up an otherwise dull day Pinky.

Sol_ie wrote:

pinky wrote: it's been mainly about the virtues of Magret de Canard and the perils of Grimbergen Double.

That explains the whole 'disappearing jersey' story, so.

Nope that's a whole different story, involving cane wielding night club owners and an underground Christian fundamentalist network !!

pinky wrote: it's been mainly about the virtues of Magret de Canard and the perils of Grimbergen Double.

That explains the whole 'disappearing jersey' story, so.

pinky wrote:

biffo77 wrote: I was in Gloucester (plus la rochelle, ospreys, leinster, munster away matches this year), and apart from being on the pitch for 80 mins, what else did he do? (granted a lot of the team didn't perform that day)

I have to say, it's the first time I've seen someone cite their away attendance record as a supporting argument in a criticism of a player.
I've learned a lot in my various trips to France, but it's been mainly about the virtues of Magret de Canard and the perils of Grimbergen Double. If I'd known that I was also subliminally absorbing wisdom regarding the machinations of the front row, I'd have had my CV in to BT Sport long ago.

I was merely saying that I've been to a good few matches this season, 80+% home and a few away matches, but hey, what do I know? It is irritating that after a 6 hr round trip to see a home match, to witness a player I believe to have regressed at an enormous rate. Is he the only or main problem with the team performances since the 6 nations? No, but do I believe he's an asset to the team? No.

biffo77 wrote: I was in Gloucester (plus la rochelle, ospreys, leinster, munster away matches this year), and apart from being on the pitch for 80 mins, what else did he do? (granted a lot of the team didn't perform that day)

I have to say, it's the first time I've seen someone cite their away attendance record as a supporting argument in a criticism of a player.
I've learned a lot in my various trips to France, but it's been mainly about the virtues of Magret de Canard and the perils of Grimbergen Double. If I'd known that I was also subliminally absorbing wisdom regarding the machinations of the front row, I'd have had my CV in to BT Sport long ago.

salmson wrote:

rossie wrote: connacht need to add two things for next season.
1. defence. teams get through far too easily to score regularly undoing lots of good work.
2. goalkicking. penalties and conversions scored change the course of games and ultimately results. Connacht miss far too many and this keeps opposition in games.

The goalkicking argument is just fighting the last war. All our kickers are between 70-80%, as opposed to no-one over 60% last season (there is an obvious need for a 10 that can boss games and stay fit but that's a separate issue to goalkicking).

Our kick rate over the past 3 league losses is 80%,100%, 50%. We've missed 3, 0, and 9 points from the tee when conceding 6, 5 and 5 tries.

You might want to rephrase our priorities as (1) defence (2) refer to priority 1.

Eh? "All our kickers are over 70%-80%."
NO they most definitely aren't in the games that really matter, the Pro 12.

Craig is the only regular kicker with a remotely acceptable level of accuracy, Jack is barely above 60%.
Daragh we know usually only get's kick from around the 50m range (into a headwind)...

People can say what they want about MIah, but he puts the ball between the posts more times than not...

A team who struggle top score tries (Aly Muldowney our leading Pro12 try scorer with Five, two more than our most prolific back) cannot afford a kicking average of barely 2 out of every three kicks...

Connacht Pro12 Kicking Accuracy Stats wrote:

l

Kicker	Successfu	Attempts	%
Miah	9	11	81.82%
Craig	21	28	75.00%
Ian P	8	11	72.73%
Jack	23	36	63.89%
Darragh	10	16	62.50%
Totals	71	102	69.61%

At the fear of feeding a troll I will respond one last time. First I'm very pleased for you that you get to so many away games, I hope you particularly enjoyed the La Rochelle game (when Rodney didn't play) and the Leinster game (where Rodney was the only prop to play 80 mins, not bad for one so unfit, he also lasted 80 mins against Osprey but so did Buckley so it must be easy). The only time I have seen our scrum comprehensively bested this season was against Edinburgh so in response to what else Rodney does: he scrums......very well. Granted it's a team effort but the hardest job in the pack is the TH, by a distance. This leads to your point about penalties: I'd wager a large percentage of our penalties at scrum time go against Rodney, but he's the tighthead; that's who gets penalised in scrums and I would also wager he commits far less penalties than the majority of TH in the competition.

Comparing Ths to other positions, even looseheads, is a nonsense as well. They have different physiques and train differently accordingly, you may as well compare him to Poolman and complain that he doesn't score as many tries. He might weigh the same as Roux or Swifty, but neither of those are 80 minute players either....it's almost as if there is a tradeoff between size/power and stamina.

The starting THs of the top five teams in the league: Ross/Moore, Herbst, Botha/Archer, Murray, and Jarvis- there's not a lot for me between any of those and Rodney, in fact bar the front row and the centres I don't think we stack up as well against the top five as well in any other position on the pitch. Take scrum half for example- those same teams have Webb, Murray, Boss/Reddan, Pyros/Matawalu and Pienaar- Marmion is one of our best players and the gap between him and pretty much all of those guys is greater than between Rodders and the other THs, yet I don't see you dogging Kieran out questioning his fitness and workrate.

I'm still waiting for the huge swathe of THs you are aware of and available that are better than Rodney? Hell- I'll take one available TH better than Rodney and be happy.

Edit to say: Earlier in the season when White was starting I would agree with many of your points but in the last few months (pretty much since White got injured on Ireland duty) Rodney has stepped up in a huge way. After Muldowney he's in the reckoning for player of the season for me.

salmson wrote:

rossie wrote: connacht need to add two things for next season.
1. defence. teams get through far too easily to score regularly undoing lots of good work.
2. goalkicking. penalties and conversions scored change the course of games and ultimately results. Connacht miss far too many and this keeps opposition in games.

The goalkicking argument is just fighting the last war. All our kickers are between 70-80%, as opposed to no-one over 60% last season (there is an obvious need for a 10 that can boss games and stay fit but that's a separate issue to goalkicking).

Our kick rate over the past 3 league losses is 80%,100%, 50%. We've missed 3, 0, and 9 points from the tee when conceding 6, 5 and 5 tries.

You might want to rephrase our priorities as (1) defence (2) refer to priority 1.

while percentages are important and indicate a players proficiency in kicking it's rewarding your team with 3 points at vital times in big games that I'm referring to mostly. I have to assume that the captain consults his kicker (even if it is only a nod ) before pointing to the posts. If the kicker accepts the responsibility then he must deliver. at 6 -5 he accepted that responsibility twice and failed on both occasions. that changes the course of a game. at 12 - 5 up you can kick for territory etc . your players are energised, become that fraction more physical in contact and hit tackles earlier. missed kicks in tight games sap the energy and belief out of teams.

So, lets compare Rodney with Bucks then. How many times do you see Buckley running forward, making breaks.

Rodney might be a destructive tackler, but how many tackles does he make compared to Bucks or Tom, both front rowers?

as for his scrumming? what percentage of penalties against Connacht scrum are given against him? The days of icing on cake from front rowers, for doing something other than them doing well in scrums is long gone, in the pro era, they've got to give more to the team.
According to the Connacht squad profiles, he's 123kg, just 1 kg more than Quinn and Swifty at preseason, but I doubt the figure is accurate now

I was in Gloucester (plus la rochelle, ospreys, leinster, munster away matches this year), and apart from being on the pitch for 80 mins, what else did he do? (granted a lot of the team didn't perform that day)

Accidentally Onside wrote: I'm normally happy enough to let things go but that is quite frankly nonsense. If you can find a tighthead that scrums, runs, passes, tackles, hit rucks, "takes part in the game", picks winning lotto numbers, cures hunger, etc, then feel free to suggest him. Rodney is not a backrow or a centre, he's a tighthead prop whose job is to lock down the scrum, anything else is the icing on the case, and in Rodney's case there is a fair bit of icing. He's our most destructive tackler, he carries a load of ball for a th (compare him to Ross who's is Ireland's number starting th and never carries or puts in big hits) and whilst I agree he has been lacking fitness at times now is not one of those- he played 80 mins against Gloucester for the first time I can remember and whilst he may slow down you find me someone who weighs 125kg that can run for 80 mins without slowing and I'll be more than happy for him to take rodders place in the team. All of this whilst he has to play almost every game due to White's injury.

We may have a problem with some of our players but Rodney is definitely not one of them, you won't see Glasgow's packed pushed around in the scrum the way they were by us very often and the kudos for that lies squarely with the guys with 1-3 on their back. For me he's been brilliant for us since White has been out.

The Connacht attack reminds me a little of how the Italian national team plays.
Either by design or by accident, we tend to go back 15-20 meters behind the gainline to free up our outside backs. This can actually make sense if you are in the opposition 22, but many times against Glasgow we held possession while losing 20-30 meters, especially early in the second half. All it requires is the opposition to have a fast line and drift defence and your bollixed. Italy are the same.

We need, especially when in midfield to hit the gain line more often. This happens sometimes when the SH hits the 12, but Marmion's pass isn't fast enough (he has declined at the basics alarmingly this year). Our 10 must attack the line more often, Keatley could do it, as Madigan, Jackson do also, but neither Carthy or Nikora can. We are easy to defend against until we fix this.

i'm not buying into the theory we have stepped it up a level this year, i think we outperformed from the level we actually are at in a couple of games, we had a good run during both international breaks, the results during and after christmas reflected the real level we are at and at the end of the season if we finish 8th you can't argue with comparing with previous seasons and saying we are on a par with the last 4 years. But i still believe our level could have been raised enough to achieve 6th/7th if we have looked for the 2 signings that I think everyone agreed was needed a 10 and 6/8 before this season had started.

Disappointing all around. Perhaps if the wins from this season were spread out over the course of the whole season it might feel more like Connacht have made progress but the last three league games especially have me feeling like they've gone backwards. Teams are happy enough to allow Connacht all the possession they like since they know Connacht will huff and puff, do very little with that possession and eventually make an error which the opposition will quickly turn into points, usually an easy enough try at that. Now I knew the second half of the season was going to be tougher, wasn't really expecting miracles against the top 4 sides just a better fight. Unfortunately they put themselves in this position by not taking care of Cardiff home and away and Edinburgh, though much improved, at home. There's your points for 6th place right there. But in reality the Challenge Cup is Connacht's level as it stands now and unless Pat has some ground breaking signings up his sleeve it's were they belong next season.

rossie wrote: connacht need to add two things for next season.
1. defence. teams get through far too easily to score regularly undoing lots of good work.
2. goalkicking. penalties and conversions scored change the course of games and ultimately results. Connacht miss far too many and this keeps opposition in games.

The goalkicking argument is just fighting the last war. All our kickers are between 70-80%, as opposed to no-one over 60% last season (there is an obvious need for a 10 that can boss games and stay fit but that's a separate issue to goalkicking).

Our kick rate over the past 3 league losses is 80%,100%, 50%. We've missed 3, 0, and 9 points from the tee when conceding 6, 5 and 5 tries.

You might want to rephrase our priorities as (1) defence (2) refer to priority 1.

While I agree with the posts calling for perspective on the season as a whole, most of the tries we leaked against Glasgow and Ulster were as soft as you'll ever see. We were not conceding so many scores like that earlier in the season and our basic error count has shot up recently, I don't know whether that's down to player fatigue or what, but it is extremely alarming.

connacht need to add two things for next season.
1. defence. teams get through far too easily to score regularly undoing lots of good work.
2. goalkicking. penalties and conversions scored change the course of games and ultimately results. Connacht miss far too many and this keeps opposition in games.

If connacht were better at one or both they would be 12 pts better off in the table now. The irony is that these are the easier areas of the game to improve and yet they remain a problem.