TMO was Italian. Shocking bloody decision all the same. Thought Mitrea had one of his poorer games. Gave a couple of bizarre breakdown penalties against Heenan & Nick Williams in quick succession in the first half.

When the (clearly biased) Welsh commentators are shocked by the (unbelievably biased) Welsh TMO decision in their favour you know something is wrong. I seem to recall being on the wrong end of quite a few terrible calls by Welsh TMOs in Wales over the years.

Great win and a huge result considering the first half performance was pretty inept. Basic skills let us down repeatedly (passing, tackling) and it's pretty obvious now the impact that Andre Bell and Dave Ellis had when they were here. Awesome resilience to hang in and really take the game to them in the last 15 minutes.

Sol_ie wrote: And no way was did that ball come off Niyi. Mad TMO decision.

S4C commentators (the ones doing the English commentary at any rate) were absolutely insistent that the ball came back off a Cardiff hand and the try should have stood.

The bench were brilliant - Farrell, Bealham, Blade and Heffernan all made big impact

special mention to JP Cooney who had a great first half (one of the few that can be said about)

Negatives : I'm still not convinced by Ili, lineout still ropey at times, Healys handling doesn't seem quite right ever since his hand injury

But Jaysus that was way too much stress for a Sunday lunchtime

Operation Top 6 is back on

What a game from min 35 to 80. Good composure. Shades of what we were last season
Always pleasant to win away in Cardiff, Mitrea is such a different kind of ref than Hodges/Poite. My favorite one.

An exciting game, at least.

Thought I was going to scream when Jack missed the drop. Defo the right idea, mind.

Some penalty from Craig to finish it off.

Would love to see some flatter passes than the first half. Blade had a great game when he came on, I thought. SOB was great, and Finlay had a good impact off the bench.

And no way was did that ball come off Niyi. Mad TMO decision.

Shame that this was opposite the women's 6 nations match, reports saying it was great fun to watch.

(COME ON SCOTLAND!!)

good win for Connacht lets get bp win vs dragons next week

Well that almost makes up for our visit two years ago.

I gave up trying and ran off to the pub. Anyone in Knocknacarra, Sheridans have it.

Does anyone know how to watch this online?

Figure Tiernan is going to be ready to rip it up after another slap from Joe

Just a heads up: Game on in Murtys on Sunday!

I'll be honest, bar Navidi and Williams, I'm pretty ignorant about that Cardiff pack - how does ours fair up against theirs?
It's a good backline they have lined up though - surprised Halaholo not starting

Connacht Rugby wrote: Connacht team to face Cardiff Blues
10th February 2017

Connacht Head Coach Pat Lam has named his side to face Cardiff Blues in round 14 of the Guinness PRO12 this Sunday (1:05pm).

Niyi Adeolokun marks his 50th appearance for the province at the weekend starting in a back three with fellow Irish internationals Tiernan O’Halloran and Matt Healy.

Stacey Ili has returned from injury to form a centre partnership with Craig Ronaldson while Jack Carty and John Cooney are named at half back.

Denis Buckley, Tom McCartney and JP Cooney pack down in the front row with Quinn Roux and James Cannon, who this week signed a two-year contract extension, partnering in the second row. John Muldoon captains from the Number 8 position with Sean O’Brien and Jake Heenan alongside him.

Commenting on the upcoming game, Pat Lam said:

“While it was good to get the break and a chance to work away on different aspects of our game, we’re all really looking forward to going out and playing this weekend.

“Cardiff have always been tough opponents for us, particularly away from home where so many games have gone right down to the wire. We expect a big challenge again on Sunday and we know there is little room for error as we look to improve our overall performance.”

Connacht team to face Cardiff Blues

Sunday February 12th, kick off 13:05, Cardiff Arms Park

(Connacht caps in brackets)

15 Tiernan O’Halloran (118)
14 Niyi Adeolokun (49)
13 Stacey Ili (
12 Craig Ronaldson (58)
11 Matt Healy (84)
10 Jack Carty (71)
9 John Cooney (31)

1 Denis Buckley (108)
2 Tom McCartney (56)
3 JP Cooney (43)
4 Quinn Roux (46)
5 James Cannon (9)
6 Sean O’Brien (31)
7 Jake Heenan (47)
8 John Muldoon (292) (captain)

Replacements:

16 Dave Heffernan (75)
17 Ronan Loughney (190)
18 John Andress (4)
19 Naulia Dawai (5)
20 Nepia Fox-Matamua (16)
21 Caolin Blade (37)
22 Tom Farrell (1)
23 Danie Poolman (79)

Injured / Unavailable: Conor Carey, Ivan Soroka, Conan O’Donnell, Andrew Browne, Marnitz Boshoff, Bundee Aki, Eoin Griffin, Cormac Brennan, Cian Kelleher, Darragh Leader, Josh Rowland.

Ireland squad: Finlay Bealham, Ultan Dillane, Kieran Marmion

Cardiff Blues v Connacht
Sunday 12th February
Kick-off: 13:05
Cardiff Arms Park

Betty Swallocks wrote: As long as Ospreys and Glasgow stay in front of us (which they will) we will take the last automatic qualifying spot by passing Cardiff and either Ulster or Llanelli and finishing 6th. To that end us winning against Cardiff and Edinburgh beating Ulster this weekend would be a huge assist.

Glasgow's position is pretty much irrelevant to us. They just need to stay ahead of Edinburgh to qualify.
Personally I would prefer Ulster to beat Edinburgh otherwise Edinburgh would be ahead of Connacht going into the game on Sunday, and with the fixtures list UIster have, I don't think catching them is very likely anyway. The team that we might have an outside chance of catching and getting in to Europe is Scarlets, so we really need Glasgow to beat them (and if they could lose in Thomond and the RDS in the next few weeks that would also help immensely).

But I do agree on the key point that we need to beat Cardiff ...

EDIT: Feck, that's not a bad Cardiff side.

Cardiff Blues: Matthew Morgan; Blaine Scully, Rey Lee-Lo, Steve Shingler, Rhun Williams; Gareth Anscombe, Lloyd Williams (capt); Rhys Gill, Kristian Dacey, Anton Peikrishvili, Jarrad Hoeata, James Down, Macauley Cook, Josh Navidi, Nick Williams


Replacements: Matthew Rees, Marc Thomas, Scott Andrews, Seb Davies, Sion Bennett, Tomos Williams, Willis Halaholo, Tom James