Advertisement
Eric Elwood before his final Heineken Cup match as Connacht coach. INPHO/James Crombie
winning note

Elwood plans February league climb after Heineken Cup swansong

The focus now switches to league action and Connacht are keen to build on their weekend win.

THE FIRE ALARMS rang piercingly in the briefing room following Connacht’s 25-20 win over Zebre on Friday but was not as loud as the rollicking Eric Elwood delivered to his players post-match.

Elwood, following his final Heineken Cup match as Connacht coach, climbed into his weary troops after they almost contrived to blow a healthy lead to the dogged Italians.

The men from the west squandered a 19-6 lead to fall one point behind before Dan Parks, who was a mixture on the sublime and ridiculous, came through when needed to slot over two drop goals.

“Credit to Zebre,” Connacht captain Nathan White told TheScore.ie. ”They hung in there, came back, and have this never-say-die attitude.

“We knocked off for a while and they weren’t far off getting that win before Dan Parks kicked that nice drop goal to get us back in front.”

White added, “To get Eric a win in his final Heineken Cup game is a nice feeling but we got a bit of a dressing down, down in the sheds.

“We want to improve each week and we could have done better out there.”

Easing off

Elwood felt that his side took their foot off the pedal after going 10 points clear but noted that his forwards were ‘magnificent’ in holding out the Italians late in the piece.

He commented, “[Zebre] obviously felt ‘right, we’re going to run everything here’. We were poor, we missed tackles and let them run at us so that was disappointing.

The pleasing thing was that when they took the lead, the lads showed a lot of character. So it’s nice to stand here and say we won the game, won it ugly, and finished the campaign on a high.

Elwood blamed the testing conditions but felt Connacht ‘went wide too early and didn’t earn it’ when it came to try-scoring opportunities.

He added, “Like I’ve said, if we’ve to win games we have to earn them. It goes to the wire. We have no right to think we’re that much better than anyone else.

“I thought Dan was very good at controlling the game. In the second half he made a few uncharacteristic errors but it’s important on nights like [this] to have a player that can guide you around the park and, more importantly, hit those drop goals and long-range penalties.”

Connacht now have four Pro12 matches that will take place during the Six Nations window, when many sides are deprived of their international stars.

“The Heineken Cup is put to bed now,” said Elwood. “We’ll come back and reassess our goals. Those four games are important and it has to be a goal to get as many points out of those games as we can.”

*Additional reporting by Aaron Turner (Connacht Clan)

Confirmed: Defending champions Leinster out at pool stage, Saracens claim win

As it happened: Munster v Racing Metro, Heineken Cup