A BONUS-POINT WIN over an Irish rival, a fine send-off for departing legends Jack Carty and Denis Buckley on their final home game for Connacht, and a result which keeps the province’s URC play-off hopes alive heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

Saturday’s 26-7 defeat of Munster at a sold-out Dexcom Stadium was a sweet one for Connacht and the hope is that there is at least one more great weekend left in their season.

Following this weekend’s games the province remain ninth in a tight URC play-off race, but are just one point off Ulster and Cardiff heading into round 18, and two points of sixth-place Munster, ahead of their trip to Edinburgh on Friday.

The play-off race is going right down to the wire, but having bagged their seventh win across their last eight URC outings, an in-form Connacht side remain right in the hunt.

And Saturday’s impressive win suggests Stuart Lancaster’s side will attack that round 18 fixture full of confidence.

“I just said to the lads in the changing room, if you’d have said to me at the start of the day we’d get a win with a bonus point and play as well as we did, I’d have taken it for sure,” Lancaster said.

“But there was an inner confidence inside the group I think that’s been building and obviously we had a good week’s training so I think that all helps. But also as I said in the changing room, it’s got to go back to zero and we’ve got to do it again next week because it’s still all to go after isn’t it?

But to do it for the likes of Jack (Carty), Denis Buckley, for the supporters, it gives a great sense of belief in the direction that we’re going I think.”

Connacht were dominant from the start against a disappointing Munster, playing with intent and showing greater physicality as they moved into a deserved 19-0 first-half lead. Impressively, that was achieved after winning the toss and opting to play into the strong breeze in Galway.

“Yeah, I think the wind was tough to play into so obviously your kicking options get limited so you have to play, and in some ways that’s good for us because it forces us to start moving the ball from a restart, you catch a restart and then you have to play out.

“Josh (Ioane) I thought was excellent, when he came back in and he controlled that really well so to go in at 19-0 was really, really good.

“My overriding message at half time was about discipline which probably wasn’t the way it then played out in the second half as eight penalties went against us, so we need to improve that for sure because Munster came back into it, but it was a relief to get that try at the end, Sean Jansen’s try to give us the bonus point for sure.”

Jansen’s try was a huge moment, arriving just after Munster had finally put themselves on the scoreboard in the entering the final 10 minutes, and ensuring Connacht sealed the bonus-point that probably should have earlier in the game.

“It’s all the one-percenters that I think we did really well, whether it’s that extra effort in a tackle, whether it’s the goal line defence, whether it’s winning a restart, whether it’s winning the scraps on the floor or working hard,” Lancaster added.

“Munster go hard at the breakdown and they hold you up in the tackle contest and they try and create slow ball so you’ve got to work for everything when you play Munster and we worked in all the unseen parts of the game really well I felt.

“And then it never happens automatically but a gradual process of pounding the rock means that you ultimately get your rewards in the end but sometimes it takes until the 72nd minute to achieve it.

“So yeah, Munster stuck in there but I felt on the balance of the first half we took a lot out of their tanks and obviously they had the 20 minute red card as well, which obviously didn’t help them, but yeah, overall, great win.”