Expectation has just gone way up because of the success of last season.

Expectation from fans, media, opposition and themselves of course.

That generates tremendous pressure for performances and results. This is professional sport after all. There is no hiding, unless you are an Italian team!!!

These guys get paid to play the game they love. And the coaches to coach the game they love.

Got to take the good with the bad sadly. Them and us!!!!

I don't necessarily feel any one players is at fault, but there is a general collective failure so far.

- Preparation wasn't great.
- Recruitment has been a bit sketchy.
- Lots of injuries during pre season/ Team still gassing out half way through the second half - Had there been a problem with conditioning?
- Leaders not leading - All across the team.
- Internationals not inspiring from the front - This to me has been a huge shame. I expect huge things from all our recent internationals to raise the levels and standards in games and it hasn't really happened.

....this has all fed into where we are and probably now a very real dent in collective confidence and pressure to get a result at all costs asap.

I was just thinking over the weekend where we are and where we need to get to be. I am wondering were we making the same little mistakes at the start of last season as this but it went unnoticed as we were playing weaker teams due to the world cup , and we still got the results where this year the teams are stronger and we are getting punished. Just a thought - Bundee is his own biggest critic but if there is anyone that can push and drive standards it is him?

Bundee really doesn't seem to mentally at the races at all. Dropped balls, forward passes, missed tackles. Think SOL should have replaced him and not Grif. Jacks kicking was simply out there it was so bad. If there is no gap Jack really you should play for position. Matt had lots of opportunity to run lines or to chip and run but looked short of imagination. Kiernan had not only one but two clearance kicks blocked down. Tiernan and Niyi were probably the only backs that looked like they had any clue. There is a lot to worry about. Returning players is all fine and good but they will not solve these problems.

Really thought it was a terrible spectacle to look at. Couple of crucial times in the match, Jack Carty's miss at 0-5. Thomas had missed a couple of straightforward ones as well by that stage but if we'd got to 0-8 against a side similarly bereft of confidence it'd have looked healthy. At 7-8 early in the 2nd half there was a spell where the game was crying out to be won and we really showed a lack of composure at key times.

2nd try for Scarlets was very poor from the touch judge but we'd lost the impetus at that stage anyway.

A few positive signs in the first half but to be honest even just 3 games into the season it's hard now to see this season going anywhere. You can't give rivals the sort of advantage over us we have and hope to claw it back.

Edinburgh are going very poorly also so hopefully we can at least get up and running next weekend. If we don't its hard to see when we'll begin to turn things around.

Never won over there, last night wasn't going to start this.

I thought Marmion and the pack were doing their jobs well, jack was great from play and improving from the boot. Too many unforced errors and everything seemed a little too panicked, not relaxed. Bundee spilled on a few times from straightforward passes, for example.

Another tough night, all in all.

(Although: the Clan Flag got picked out a few times! 'Brand' awareness folks)

Yeah personally for me at this stage, I hold the players primarily accountable for where they are. Possibly too much of a party hang over.

Very few players look like leaders and game changers. And that is with 7 Irish internationals starting yesterday. Completely unacceptable really and sadly now, other teams, fans and media are starting to snigger at us.

With that said, recruitment hasn't been nearly good enough either. We have signed a lot of squad fillers and players with potential and lost game managers and game changers.

For me that aspect of things and possibly the number of injuries we have is on the organisation.

Difficult times ahead sadly.

Lots of players need a good look in the mirrior. Shambles of a game again. Thats 3.5 really bad losses.

Big improvement last night, they adapted better to the conditions but could see real improvement. The second try was a Clancy special, wing forward pushes the ball back through the scrum to get it out, Muldoon and Blade claim it, Clancy and linesman miss it, try is scored, Muldoon brings refs attention to the hands in the scrum again......and Clancy checks THE GROUNDING!!!!!!. Positives are that we are improving, wins will come soon as long as long as we can avoid Clancy!

every game we change this we change that. and most anybody will say 10 12 13. i'd put buckley and mccartney at 12 13 and finlay at 10 just so we can change the pain element.

salmson wrote: 5 points cover 1st to 6th, a 7 point gap to Dragons in 7th, 5 points cover 7th to last. The league has bifurcated very early this season and it looks like we're (at best) in a scrap for 7th and a playoff.

Forwards gave us a platform but only Jack and Niyi turned up behind the scrum. Mul would probably have been dropped already if he wasn't captain.

God darn you salmson. bifurcated. back to my dictionary again

5 points cover 1st to 6th, a 7 point gap to Dragons in 7th, 5 points cover 7th to last. The league has bifurcated very early this season and it looks like we're (at best) in a scrap for 7th and a playoff.

Forwards gave us a platform but only Jack and Niyi turned up behind the scrum. Mul would probably have been dropped already if he wasn't captain.

Issues seem to be match fitness/sharpness which will sort itself out but will be a painful few weeks. Scrums seems to be decent though.

Hopefully confidence won't be damaged long term while the problems are ironed out

after the hour played we saw the huge gap between

Marmion and Blade
Roux and Steevenson
Bealham and JP Cooney
Buckley and Loughney
All soooooo slow compared to starters
McCarthney and Heff (lineout darts)

And we realise how we missed White/McCoy or Soroka/Browne/Cooney/Boshoff
On a (rather) positive note, we won't see in Connacht anything more from TOH for most of the international windows, he's just tremedous player, strong in everythink you can ask from a FB

phatguerilla wrote: First half, particularly the second 20 minutes, was actually fairly decent - defense was strong, scrum was really good, lineout provided platform for mauls, backs making line breaks. Not the same as last season but especially in that weather things looked decent. But second half the team just slowed to a crawl it seemed, defense became more porous and only a slew of last ditch tackles kept us in it. I don't know what Muldoon and Blade were appealing for off that Scarlets scrum that led to the try but you should never be switching off like that on your own 5m, it shows how brittle the team confidence is that they were depending on the ref bailing them out. Absolutely zero incisive play from 50 minutes onwards, last season was all about running at space, so far this season they're running towards contact as its the easy option and very few are playing with enough confidence to believe they'll get past the tackle.

Finally, what is wrong with the Scarlets that they have a bunch of massive forwards, most of whom are capped internationals, yet they can't scrummage? Do they even have a scrum coach? An absolute disaster that they continue to fail to address.

Complaining about hands in scrum by wing forward clear as day

First half, particularly the second 20 minutes, was actually fairly decent - defense was strong, scrum was really good, lineout provided platform for mauls, backs making line breaks. Not the same as last season but especially in that weather things looked decent. But second half the team just slowed to a crawl it seemed, defense became more porous and only a slew of last ditch tackles kept us in it. I don't know what Muldoon and Blade were appealing for off that Scarlets scrum that led to the try but you should never be switching off like that on your own 5m, it shows how brittle the team confidence is that they were depending on the ref bailing them out. Absolutely zero incisive play from 50 minutes onwards, last season was all about running at space, so far this season they're running towards contact as its the easy option and very few are playing with enough confidence to believe they'll get past the tackle.

Finally, what is wrong with the Scarlets that they have a bunch of massive forwards, most of whom are capped internationals, yet they can't scrummage? Do they even have a scrum coach? An absolute disaster that they continue to fail to address.

Final score Scarlets 17 Connacht 8. A disappointing night for us.