Back to Bread & Butter - Connacht Match

[Article]

Connacht are a mch better team now than they were at beginning of year...I think they will be serious team next season like Glasgow.

I am rightly pished off with the gobshite with the salter and Union Jack as seen on TV ...are we attracting soccer tubes ....maybey we should expect Connacht, Leinster, adn Munster fans tyo wave triclours when they visist Ravenhill !!!!

You sure that wasn't HWM with his Fiji flag .. has the Union flag in it ??

Dunno mate you could be right...and if true...I feel like a right tube myself

[shamalicious]

I saw a light blue flag that had a union jack in it. Could well have been a Fiji one.

[Bart S]

Fair play to the Ulster fans who were there. Could certainly hear them and I'm sure some of them were making their 2nd journey in less than a week to support the team

Connacht at the Sportsground these days is a tough proposition. Just ask the mighty Quins amongst others! With the team we put out, purely result-wise a losing BP was not a bad effort. Howeveer what was diappointing was the way in which we missed far too many tackles and let Connacht dominate at the breakdown.

Looking at the bench we put out, one wonders how much McGlock really wanted to win this one, versus the risk of someone getting injured for the semi. Yes I know Gilroy and Ruan were on there, but bringing on the likes of Birch and Henderson when we were chasing the game was unlikely to have the desired effect. I'd have thought the starting XV was fair enough, but maybe a few of the big guns on the bench (Tuohy, Henry/Pedrie, Paddy Wallace) may have been the way to go? Tough one to call though.

Was surprised to see Birch come on for Diack as did we not have 2 natural 7's on then? I actually thought Diack tried pretty hard in the game. His carrying wasn't great (too upright and not too many yards made) but he did some decent stuff. Not enough to force his way into the 22 but a better effort.

[Bart S]

I saw a light blue flag that had a union jack in it. Could well have been a Fiji one.

Yes, I saw that one as well.

That eejit from Thomond last week has got us all paranoid now!

[Big-al]

I'm with you Bart - Connacht should have beaten Leinster and Munster in the sportsground this season, I was getting annoyed by the pundits on BBC NI after the game. Connacht are no mugs nowadays, especially at home. Not many 2nd XVs go to the Sportsground and come within a few points these days.

[Surrey Red Hand]

I saw a light blue flag that had a union jack in it. Could well have been a Fiji one.

Yes, I saw that one as well.

That eejit from Thomond last week has got us all paranoid now!

Thats NO WAY to speak about HWM

[breakdown]

I'm with you Bart - Connacht should have beaten Leinster and Munster in the sportsground this season, I was getting annoyed by the pundits on BBC NI after the game. Connacht are no mugs nowadays, especially at home. Not many 2nd XVs go to the Sportsground and come within a few points these days.

Agree with you Big-al. I'm disappointed but the result looks worse than it actually is. It gave a lot of our young guys a chance and we still got a LBP out of the match, which might matter but I doubt it will.

Paddy Jackson's all round play was good, Spence had a terrific match, STB kicking from hand was good and Paddy Mac was as good as ever. I really have high hopes for all those guys, majority of them will be very big players for Ulster in the next couple of years.

Why was Birch sent to the bin? I didnt think he did anything wrong.

[Dave]

What was up with Michael Swift going completely psycho on Stevenson? Repeated elbows to the back of his head in a maul, then he hauls him out punches him and Stevenson throws one punch back both carded and penalty against us??

[Rooster]

What was up with Michael Swift going completely psycho on Stevenson? Repeated elbows to the back of his head in a maul, then he hauls him out punches him and Stevenson throws one punch back both carded and penalty against us??

Penalty reversed for punching back probably, you are supposed to man up and take the punches

[Dave]

He did have his hand in his face too which is dodgy, needed a punch for that!

[porterbelly]

What was up with Michael Swift going completely psycho on Stevenson? Repeated elbows to the back of his head in a maul, then he hauls him out punches him and Stevenson throws one punch back both carded and penalty against us??

Stevenson lifted him off the ground in the maul and carried him which dangerous play, Swift was trying to get Stevenson off him by hitting him on the back.

I don't think it was so much an attempted gouge by Swift on the ground as trying to push Stevenson off him and avoiding getting his head punched off

[ruckover]

Right time for me to get stuck in. My thoughts:
- Lay off iHumph's defence tonight. Thought it was OK. Better than Terblanche's, saw him slip off three tackles, two of which were for tries. That said, iHumph's attacking play and goal kicking were dire.
- Two sin binnings were rubbish. Stevenson's was a yellow admittedly, but we should've had the penalty because Stevenson was attacked first. And what was Birch doing wrong, pray tell? Nothing from what I saw.
- Defence. Majestic last week, rubbish this week. Three soft tries and too many penalties conceded. Depressing.
- Marshall injured. Uh oh.
- Scrum. Oh boy are we in trouble... Court at 3 is NOT the solution.
- Back line. No spark, no creativity, nothing.
- We have no 2nd XV. Leinster fielded their reserves and annihilated Embra 55-13. We play our reserves vs Connacht and lose 26-21. To win this league you gotta have strength in depth and we sure don't.

One positive. It was our 2nd XV. At least it wasn't a full strength side crashing down in Galway. Gives the guys a well earned rest and then back to it next week.

[BaggyTrousers]

Swift could have been red carded for repeated use of elbows to the head but in fairness big Stevo did land a couple of good digs on him so 2 yellows probably about right. I completely curse teh family onto teh 7th generation of anyone who thinks Stevo was doing anything wrong and had Dudley Doright penalised Swift for his elbow blows nothing would have got out of hand.

We should have won that game leading at half time with the wind in our favour. Rank bad 2nd half, I had expected a loss with a scratch side out but ultimately very disappointing performance in a game which we should have won even with the weak selection.

Please please people stop the bullshit about Connacht being tough opposition at the Sportsground, they simply aren't, they were appalling but wanted it a little more than a very very poor Ulster performance with very few exceptions.

Very worrying performance from Tom Court at tighthead, not good enough.

Sadly for me Willie Faloon was the worst player on the pitch, a man of whom I had high hopes a couple of years ago looked like he had already started his Connacht contract, diabolical performance.

[againstthehead]

Hard to argue with much of that baggy bum. I thought connacht played well for the 1st 20 mins or so. Took it to our pack quite nicely. As you say, the game was there to be won at half time. I guess if we had had the likes of Muller, Pedrie, Best, PW and trimble on the bench we could have walked off with the points. Diack for Birch for an odd change for me.

Don't think the wind was as big a factor as you suggest, duffy was kicking big yardage in the 2nd 40 mins. Appeared a bit like thomand with the wind blowing both ways!!!

What is does highlight is that we need a backrow signing badly for next season. At least 1...

[Big-al]

Stats and performances state that they are hard to beat in the Sportsground.