THE ACCEPTED WISDOM approaching the restarted season, wisdom held over from regular season starts, was that teams would take considerable time to hit their straps, find their rhythm and get into the swing of normal service.
Not for the first time, Connacht defied convention on Sunday. And did so in thrilling style.
All four provinces spoke before the restart about hitting a training ground intensity that would ramp them up to the standard of a competitive match. Connacht made good on the promise.
“We’ve had game-like scenarios for the last three weeks here in Connacht. The transition from that to going to the Aviva was seamless of us,” says Caolin Blade, who had a watching brief on Sunday, but first-hand experience of all leading up to it.
“Coaches over the lockdown had a big look at our gameplan, the little factors in it. Our skills and the directness of our play was one of the big things. We really trained that in the last seven weeks.”
Of course, Connacht’s restart is also unique by dint of their light schedule. With no chance to reach the semi-finals, they will have two matchdays on and then it’s off-season again until October. That wafer-thin window brings all the more pressure to perform.
Andy Friend notes how the western province’s coaching ticket consciously stepped back as kick-off approach in order to mitigate that pressure.
“I think sometimes you can over-coach on game-day, you’ve got to give them their opportunity,” said Friend during today’s virtual press conference.
“They’ve got to have the confidence to go and do it, they’ve got to have the clarity of what they’re trying to do and they’ve got to have the trust that whatever they do they have your backing.
“We’ve been building that, the weekend was good. We virtually don’t do much on game-day, to be honest, other than support them in whatever they need from us.
We give them the trust to go out there and play the game they’ve been training.”
One element of the ‘building’ towards that point that Friend highlights is the work done on player skills, skills that ensured Connacht were able to attack fluidly and effectively to secure the four-try win.
While Covid-19 necessitated a host of restrictions around training, Friend and attack coach Nigel Carolan found ways to make the most of any gaps in the schedule.
“We have a lot more touches of the ball,” Friend says of this summer’s training
“Partly it’s the new programme put in place, but partly it’s because there’s been a bit of standing around. Early on, you couldn’t have everyone together. So while players were waiting or biding their time, we’re getting touches on the football.
“Nigel Carolan’s introduced a really good skills programme there, so a lot of touches for players.”
Friend adds that the weather can’t be ignored as a factor. A fine day with a dry ball. But he has also formalised a process of communication between players throughout the week, making sure that units pick one another’s brains and get each other full briefed for matchday.
“One of the things we’ve added to the programme is the opportunity to have those conversations – whether it’s pre-training, post-training. We’ve put it there in the programme so the players have to talk more and the players have bought into that.
“I know that back three – Wootton, Porch, Sullivan – had a lot of conversations last week.
“Just getting clarity on situations – ‘what happens here, what happens in defence, what happens in attack here’ – so when they get out on the field they’ve had that chat. They know exactly what’s going on and they’ve had those key conversations.
“So, that’s been a really impressive buy-in from the players.
“The other thing is their own energy for each other, JB (Jarrad Butler) has put a big focus on that over the last few weeks and the players bought into that too.
“You could hear it, sometimes you didn’t need the microphone, but the level of energy and talk was really impressive.”
Friend has already signalled that he intends to make wholesale changes to his starting XV for the second game out. So the next group out will have to hit the ground running all over again.
Blade, having watched Kieran Marmion hit his best form over 80 minutes, is relishing the chance to get back on the field against Munster and continue what Sunday’s team started.
“The intention is to do exactly that. To back that up.
We own the energy we take into a game. Nobody else can control that. We learn and discover how we can find that every single week.
“From week one, all we can judge is: ‘Yeah, we did turn up with that. What did we do to come up with that? How do we replicate that?’
“It’s up to the players. That (team) found it last Sunday and the players with the opportunity this Sunday will have conversations with them and find their own way to bring the energy into a game.”
