Battling Connacht get no breaks

WHAT a victory. Or so it seemed. As Miah Nikora’s loosely struck drop kick made its way towards the posts on Sunday evening, the huge Sportsground crowd roared, the Gisborne native raised his arms, as did his captain Gavin Duffy in the background, referee John Lacey signalled for a score, the sense of utter relief was palpable and, on the balance of play, justice was about to be done. Hang on a second.

It’s a bit like a test endings for a new movie that prescreening audiences often see in Hollywood. The audience in this case wanted to digest the popcorn with a warm fuzzy feeling along the lines of ‘sometimes, things just work out’ but the director was having none of it and decided to finish on a downbeat lesson on life knocking you back time and again.

Lacey halted mid-whistle and called the TMO, but those behind the Bohermore end goal knew the outcome, most of the players had also noticed the last second nosedive of the not so laser-guided missile.

Even by Connacht’s standards of hard luck stories this season, this one was bordering on the outrageous. Connacht were primed from the outset of this contest and played to the last second with fire and brimstone. They brought a much more rounded gameplan to the contest than we had seen six days previously.

Eric Elwood had labelled contrasting performances between Gloucester and Munster outings as “a killer” during the week. At least this time, the mistakes were of the ‘learning curve’ variety. A minor solace.

Missed kicks in particular proved vital. Connacht had five placed kicks and missed four along with that drop goal. Young out half Matthew Jarvis (a late replacement for Niall O’Connor who missed out with a back spasm picked up in the warm up) was responsible for three, while second half replacement Nikora missed a relatively straight forward conversion.

All the time, Leinster were able to allow their young out half Ian Madigan focus on the rest of the game while the experienced Isa Nacewa nailed five from five to break western hearts and give a great fillip for the large traveling support from the east.

The Heineken Cup champions were outgunned two tries to none and proved to be little or no threat out wide, but solid and direct rugby allowed them to build up a lead and they adequately defended with 14 men for the best part of 20 minutes in the second half, including a dramatic and gripping final ten minutes.

For more see Page 36 of this week’s Tribune