25-22 at full time. Couldn't see it but I wonder how much Illi going off unsettled us. Don't really know how the backline would line up with those changes? Still not good enough by a long way. Probably justice for Zebre for that game in September. We need to sort ourselves out before the play offs.

This is embarrassing. Serious questions to answer for all concerned after this.

Lost possession in their 22 they run down and score a try

Yellow for Zebre no.7. Time to take advantage now.

Come on time to sort this out. This is looking a bit like Treviso last year. Two early tries then zone out.

Any chance of a rain dance?

Really frustrating stuff. Tonnes of knock ons both teams, passes not sticking, lax defending let them in for their points and silly penalties, we really look like​ conceding an intercept try, heads aren't here at all

twitter.com/connachtrugby

10-12 after 25mins, converted try for Zebre.

Try for Ronaldson! Only a minute on the pitch, Ili gone off injured according to Connacht tweet. Cooney converts. 12-3

First minute try by Ili, Cooney missed conversion

connachta wrote: Back to the yesterday team selection: I'm really happy Soroka, McCoy, Griffin, Farrell, Rowland, Poolman, McKeon, Masterson are all given a chance to make their ways into the 23 for play-off and next season.

Whether it's because of injuries or not.

Completely agree. Its good to see another option at full-back, its great to see Dani getting game time. You did mention in the past about a Tom Bundee combo so it will be interesting to see how that works out. That said I would have rathered Caolin starting and surely we can do some minor rotation 1-8. I appreciate Andrew is fresh but I would really like to see a bit more rotation. I guess Soroka is a start. So I am caught between being excited with the new inclusions and disappointed with the 1-8 rotation

Back to the yesterday team selection: I'm really happy Soroka, McCoy, Griffin, Farrell, Rowland, Poolman, McKeon, Masterson are all given a chance to make their ways into the 23 for play-off and next season.

Whether it's because of injuries or not.

Because then we risk some of our best players coming back in to the playoffs cold or undercooked. I don't​ think we are reading the same thing. I don't regard resting as the same thing as rotating and I'm not surprised Pat is playing close to as strong a team as he can, mentally he wants them to have built up a head of steam coming in to the playoffs.

What I said
So the discussion is no longer about what we need to make Top 5 but what we need to make the playoffs. So if you accept that we simply REST players and try new players as we have a lot of leeway in qualifying for the playoffs.
What you said
So you don't want to rest players then.
Are we reading the same stuff here?

So you don't want to rest players then. You want to change the side to see how squad players do, which is a bit different. Marmion and Tiernan are the only players being rested really (Ronaldson too sort of but Pat seems to treat him like glass, pulling him at 60 mins in most games). Marmion didn't get the break others did and Tiernan has played an awful lot of rugby. Resting the others would be pointless. They've just had 3 weeks off, what will another week off add to that?

As for what does Jack do: he does the same primary job as every other outhalf in rugby, he steps in at first receiver and directs the attack. He may not be the greatest outhalf in the world for even that but he's certainly the best we have available(Opinions about Ronaldson aside as Lam had made it pretty clear he sees him as a centre first and foremost and an outhalf only in case of emergency).