CONNACHT COACH ANDY Friend praised the impact of his bench as they carved out an invaluable 19-17 win over the Stormers at a windswept Sportsground.
It’s the second week in a row Connacht have come from ten points adrift to secure victory that gets their URC campaign back on track but unlike last weekend when they fell behind early in the game against Scarlets, this time they did it facing the elements in the second-half.
They seemed set for defeat when gifting a try to the Cape Town side and falling 17-7 behind after 47 minutes playing into the teeth of a gale.
But they turned it around as they emptied the bench, with flanker Conor Oliver and scrum-half Caolin Blade having huge impacts, and once they got pace into their game, the match switched in their favour and tries from Tom Daly and Peter Sullivan secured a priceless win, with Paul Boyle having crossed in the opening half.
“We call them our bouncers and when they came on they were phenomenal and gave us a bounce, that go-forward ball, so real credit to those men,” said Friend about his bench.
“Last week we had to hang on for victory, this time we had to come from behind, so it’s really pleasing to get the win.
“We play a brand of football where we can be hard to contain and I think we showed the belief in that in the closing stages.
“We knew the Stormers didn’t like having pace in the game but we couldn’t seem to find that up until about the 50th minute mark and that’s when those bouncers came on.
“But once the boys got into flow with that you can see we are hard to contain,” said Friend.
The fact that the win was achieved with five players in Irish camp — Jack Carty and Dave Heffernan are on standby for the Italian game — was all the more credible and skipper Jarrad Butler said it was a good game to win.
“It’s pretty pleasing to get the win. Our first-half was pretty disappointing. They definitely got the upperhand against the breeze so to be able to come back in the second-half was great. We got the reserves on and they really added some energy.”
Stormers coach John Dobson, whose side will now enjoy seven home games in a row in the competition, said they were pleased to get a bonus point from their trip to Galway.
“I think the scoreboard is a fair reflection. We have a run of home games coming up but it was really important for us to get something out of this game,” said Dobson.
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