A timely shot in the arm as Connacht just fail in thriller

Connacht 29

BY the end of this spectacular encounter which included nine tries, it was hard to believe that both sides had been playing only for pride. Montpellier had selected a near full strength side, so had Connacht, both teams wanted a morale boosting win to bookend the winter programme of games. In the end, the hosts hung on by a whisker as Connacht’s high octane performance came up just short on a mild Sunday at the GGL Stadium.

Connacht started poorly and looked to be on the verge of a humiliating loss after just a half hour when they trailed 21-0, but turned that around with some of the most impressive attacking rugby they have produced under Friend to lead by five points just after half time, having notched four stunning tries in 13 minutes of rugby. That set up a tense and bruising battle in the final half hour where Montpellier’s power, speed and big line breaks proved just enough to win the contest.

Friend summed it up afterwards. “It was a bizarre game, we didn’t turn up the first 30 minutes and then we had an incredible 10 minutes, but overall the mood is pretty flat. We worked hard at the tail end, couldn’t get across the line. We all probably felt like we were going to but we just didn’t get the biscuits in the end. So it’s frustrating, we just didn’t get the result but it was a much better performance which is what we were looking for there.”

The start was horrendous for Connacht. They barely had touched the ball before Georgian Levan Chilachava barrelled over after an impressive spell of attacking rugby from the hosts. The game did settle for a while, but it was no surprise that Montpellier were next on the scoreboard as they had been making ground from line breaks for a long period of time, and the two tries that followed from flying winger Gabriel N’gandebe were impressive fast moving scores.

South African World Cup star Handre Pollard converted all three of the scores and as Connacht re-grouped under the posts just before the half hour mark, the deficit was 21-0 and another nightmare of a result – along the lines of their away trips to Leinster and Ulster in recent weeks – seemed on the cards. Yet Connacht weren’t completely out on their feet either and the body language certainly didn’t look as downbeat as we saw in Dublin or Belfast in recent weeks.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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