THREE HOME WINS on the trot have completely transformed the perception of Connacht’s season.
The two most recent – wins over Ulster and Toulouse – were topsy-turvy encounters where leads were frittered away and overhauled like scores were easy to come by. In both games, Connacht came away with the points because, on the occasions when the game turned against them, they refused to go with the flow.
At home to Toulouse yesterday, they went into the dressing room at half-time trailing by 10 points. They had unleashed their magic on the French giants, but they were being overpowered and Toulouse showed that they are still capable of being… well, Toulouse.
“Pat spoke about belief and sticking to what we do well,” captain John Muldoon said when he sat his tired body down to discuss the latest proud day for his native province.
“That was the key message at half-time: ‘don’t allow them slow down the game’. Obviously their strength was the pack and the size of it. They had quality backs as well, (and when) they got go-forward ball they scored a phenomenal try in the first half.
We understood that if we could stop them and hold onto the ball, make them get up and down off the ground, make them run around, hopefully we’d run them off their feet.”
That all sounds like perfect sense in hindsight. But surely when you’ve just been rocked back over your line and feel everything has already been thrown at Toulouse, a touch of panic sets in?
Maybe for regular rugby teams, but Connacht have made punching above their weight a routine at this stage. They don’t expect to follow the blueprint every step of the way. There will be pitfalls and errors, setbacks and hurdles. But in their ranks they possess intelligent game managers and communicators to address and correct the issues.
“I think the key thing is that we always have a fair idea why it’s happened.
“There’s no ‘RAR RAR RAR’ shouting at each other. There are key messages: ‘let’s work a bit harder, let’s do this,… always key points. So today the key was ‘let’s attack, let’s not defend,” says Muldoon.
“Generally, when we concede or something happens we always give it a couple of seconds and we can identify what’s gone wrong and what’s happened.
“For example, we spoke all week about getting off the line and chopping their big men down. Their first try we just conceded yards upon yards with lads going high. That was the key message that time: ‘chop them down when we get on D’.”
Or as Lam proudly and succinctly put it: “That’s the sort of team we are, we find the problem, sort it out and fix it.”
The Samoan added: “you want to be able to go: ‘well, they’ve scored. The next job is the kick-off.’
“We know what we’re going to do from the kick-off. We turn the ball over and then talk about getting in to our shape quickly.
“There are solutions and what determines how well we do it comes from the leadership and the crowd. We have solutions for all the problems, it’s just how quickly we can execute to get back in.”
Taking this season as a whole then, Connacht have now managed to prove that the early-season struggles that led to three (and a half) defeats were down to rust and the absence of an adequate pre-season schedule rather than any frailty in their attitude or personnel.
To follow up last night – the undoubted high of the season so far and perhaps their best ever European performance – they will return to the scene of their lowest ebb of this campaign. The Pro12 champions trailed 22 – 10 at half-time of their away meeting with Zebre last month. And while they have proved themselves more than capable of reeling in such a gap, Muldoon has admitted the conditions (which fortunately forced the match to be abandoned) would have made a turnaround incredibly difficult.
Next weekend, however, the western province will go to Italy in form much better befitting their top seed in the pool. And they’ll make sure they show their wares even if they do fall behind by a score or two again.
“Look,” says Muldoon, “we started the season slow and we’ve made mistakes. We made mistakes again tonight, but there’s belief in the squad. There’s belief that we can turn around scores.
It was a different scenario to last week (against Ulster) when we went in 12 points up or whatever it was. This week we did it the other way around. Down 10 points and then came back.
“When you’ve got players on your team with speed and handling skills, you always believe you’ll score a try.
“Thankfully we’ve got them in abundance and everyone has key roles, and they’re performing quite well.”
Quite is a hell of an understatement.
