PAUL BOYLE, THE Connacht captain, accepted blame for the last minute decision that cost Connacht a bonus point last night.
With the clock ticking towards 80 minutes, Connacht were awarded a penalty in front of the posts. Had they taken the kick, and scored it, their nine-point deficit would have been cut to six, thereby granting them a bonus point. The significance of this lies in the fact that teams who finish between fifth and eighth in their Champions Cup pool gain entry to the last 16 of the Challenge Cup.
After failing to score a try with their last minute attempt, Connacht subsequently remain on one point from two games, placed tenth in pool B, four points adrift of eighth-placed Gloucester. To say they face an uphill struggle to play knock-out European rugby is an understatement.
“The honest answer is that when I was making the decision, in my head I was thinking ‘we are out of the Heineken Champions Cup’. A pride thing took over,” Boyle said. “In the end, looking back on it, it is not the smartest decision. I will take that on the chin. Challenge Cup did not come into my head at all.
“So that was a mistake. That is on me.”
However, Connacht coach, Andy Friend refused to apportion blame to Boyle.
He said: “At the end of the day, you have to trust the players out there on the field. If they feel they have momentum and they think they can get over, well I’ll back that.
“Paul and I had a brief chat afterwards around that decision. But I will trust and back what they are doing out there – it just didn’t work for us.”
Work now turns to the PRO14 with three interpro derbies up ahead for Connacht over the next three weeks, starting with Ulster this Sunday.
“We’re now (effectively) out of the Champions Cup,” said Friend. “We have put ourselves in a good position in the PRO14, but these inter-pro games become really, really important.
“We have to make sure that we don’t allow Christmas or anything else to get in our way.”
Looking further ahead, Friend confessed he is keen to improve Connacht’s European results next year, saying: ”We belong in the Champions Cup. We were frustrated coming out of Paris. People said we did well but we still lost (last weekend to Racing 92) and we don’t want to be that footy team that people are proud of because we lost a game of football. We want to be a team that is winning games in Champions Cup not just competing in Champions Cup. We haven’t been able to do that yet but it is really important that we try and get two wins from our final pool games.”
