PAUL BOYLE INSISTS Connacht’s confidence has not been dented by Friday’s 10-0 loss to Leinster, their fourth in five games this season.
A failure to score a single point added layers to their levels of disappointment, even if conditions in Galway were dreadful.
Boyle, however, believes a turnaround is on the cards. “It feels with our attack we are just one pass off,” he said.
“I really do think it is getting better, albeit there were no points scored on Friday. Conditions did just play a part in that but I really feel it is one pass away, that it is starting to flow in certain areas but just those 22 entries and those individual errors are letting us down.
“Confidence is hit when you don’t front up physically. If I’m sitting here and we’ve been beaten by a team that has run over the top of us then yes, it is a confidence thing.
“When we front up physically and it is those small errors, when I jump in a lineout, the ball slipped straight through my hands. There is no accounting for that, no reason for that, that is just an individual error and I have got to be better.
“If someone had run over the top of me then I have got to be coming in here and saying, yes our confidence has gone. But fronting up physically against Leinster is probably the easy part because you are so motivated.
“Can we back it up physically? Can we fix those small individual errors? I really do think we will be in a good place if we do that.”
What helps is the fixture list. Four defeats from five is evidently a bad start but the remaining 13 games won’t be as testing. Trips to Munster and Leinster, plus a home derby against Ulster will be hard, but every other game looks winnable, even if Boyle argued the toss on that one.
“No game is going to be easy,” the flanker said. “We have seen that with certain results. Zebre, Treviso are going really well. We have really got to focus on ourselves and fronting up physically week in and week out and fixing those small errors, getting entries into the 22, that is a real positive as that is the hardest thing to do. Friendy said, finishing off, that should be the easy part.
“Looking at fixtures, I don’t think we will do that, we will just focus on ourselves and keep improving each week.”
Connacht head coach, Andy Friend, added: “There are multiple reasons why we have not won all of those four games that we lost. There tonight I thought our attack proved that we can get into the 22. It is just our ability to be clinical when we are in there which is something we need to look at.
“We need a win next week. We got the result last week which we were very happy with. That was a ding-dong battle as well.
“Two wins out of the next two games would be fantastic for us.”
