DESPITE THEIR YOUTH, Connacht’s Eoin McKeon and Robbie Henshaw reach the 50-cap mark for their province this evening in the Guinness Pro12.
Things are different out west than at the other provinces – Pat Lam and his coaching team are often forced to rely on youth, meaning the back row and centre reach the milestone this evening against Glasgow at Scotstoun [KO 19.35].
Not that either player is undeserving of their status as important first-team players; those appearances have been earned the hard way.
Now in his third season as a starting back row for Connacht, McKeon is enjoying the wave of positivity that has surrounded the westerners in the early stages of the season. After three wins from three, things take another step up tonight against the Warriors.
They’re big boys, and you always feel like you’ve been in a fight against them,” says McKeon of Gregor Townsend’s side.
“They’ve a lot of variety in their game. We’ve been looking at their plays and there’s nothing huge that stands out as being a repetitive thing that they do, but we’ve just highlighted areas in their game that we really want to attack.
“We’ll try to minimise the damage some of their key players can do, but other than that we’ve focused on ourselves.”
Head coach Lam has enjoyed a large share of the credit for Connacht’s strong start to the season, but forwards and breakdown coach Dan McFarland is behind much of the good work that has gone into producing the wins.
McKeon, who starts at openside flanker this evening, works closely with McFarland and says the 2014 Emerging Ireland coach gets his own satisfaction from his pack’s performances.
“Any time we have a pushover scrum, or score from a maul, anything like that, it’s the forwards’ try or Dan’s try,” explains McKeon. “That’s his baby, so he’s happy to let Pat take the credit in other ways.
“If we get two or three pushover scrums against a top side, Dan will be dancing on the inside. It works the other way too, Pat takes the brunt if we get pushed off scrums but Dan will give it to us on the Monday review.”
The “straight up” and “unbelievably professional” McFarland has been pushing McKeon hard with his breakdown work, one of the areas the pair have identified as a key work-on.
When we analyse the rucks, Dan has it down to a fine art, so we get an average time of how long it takes for the ball to come back and pass onto the next phase. Sometimes it can be 2.2 seconds, sometimes it could be up at 3.5 seconds average time.
“You can be efficient at the ruck, do a job and the ball will come back, but we’re always looking to get that extra bit more, be that little bit faster.
“We really do go into a lot of detail in that area, and some people spectating might not realise that. A guy might not place the ball back quick enough or some guy didn’t clean out properly, that’s basically a wasted chance for a try, you know? It’s the little detail, the grunt work, that we’ve put a lot of focus on, especially in my game.”
Speaking of the grunt work, McKeon is in a much better place physically this season, having added several kilogrammes of precious lean mass to his frame over the summer months.
Indeed, Connacht’s physical growth as a squad is one of the reason McKeon feels they have started the season in form.
“One of the main focuses we had before we finished up last season was that Pat and the strength and conditioning team wanted everyone to put on just a bit more size.
We all worked quite hard in our-off season, so when we had those four or five weeks off, lads were in the gym to get a bit more size on.”
McKeon himself has gone from 104kg last season up to the 107-108kg mark and has concurrently managed to get “a little faster and a little stronger,” without any rise in his skin-fold readings.
He’s being worked by McFarland and Lam at the breakdown and with his ball-carrying, while off the field, an intense focus on self-analysis, nutrition and assessment of the opposition has him learning all the time.
McKeon admits that he’s not “a young lad in the squad anymore,” but a man in his third season as a starter. Within a youthful group, it’s now up to him to lead the way. His mature reflection on Connacht’s start to the campaign bodes well.
“We’re staying humble. We had three wins in a row last season as well and we slipped up. It’s three big wins, but it’s just another win in the league. We’re not taking anything for granted, we know we’ll have to put in a big effort in Glasgow.”
Connacht: Darragh Leader; Danie Poolman, Robbie Henshaw, Dave McSharry, Matt Healy; Jack Carty, Ian Porter; Denis Buckley, Dave Heffernan, Rodney Ah You; Michael Swift, Aly Muldowney; John Muldoon (capt.), Eoin McKeon, George Naoupu.
Replacements: Shane Delahunt, Ronan Loughney, Nathan White, Quinn Roux, Mick Kearney, John Cooney, Craig Ronaldson, Fionn Carr.
Glasgow: Stuart Hogg; Sean Lamont, Mark Bennett, James Downey, DTH van der Merwe; Duncan Weir, Henry Pyrgos; Gordon Reid, Pat MacArthur, Euan Murray; Tim Swinson, Al Kellock (capt.), Rob Harley, Chris Fusaro, Adam Ashe.
Replacements: Kevin Bryce, Jerry Yanuyanutawa, Rossouw de Klerk, Tom Ryder, James Eddie, Murray McConnell, Finn Russell, Tommy Seymour.
