Connacht still alive in Europe after vital group win

Sale 18

SURVIVAL was the order of the day at the Sportsground on Saturday. Sale had the home side under siege in the closing minutes after a dominant second half display and seemed set for victory only to fall foul of the referee for the manner in how they set up a driving maul from a line-out metres from the Connacht line. The shrill blow of the whistle was sweet music to Connacht ears. They had survived.

There is plenty of scope for regret in the post game analysis, they let a 17 point first half lead slip here and trailed by one going into the final ten minutes before David Horwitz tapped over the winning penalty after a late flurry of attacks. Had they won by a margin of eight or more – thus denying Sale a losing bonus – they would be top of the pool heading into the final round but by full time, it was hard to make any sort of strong argument that they were eight points a better side. So those regrets will fall on deaf ears.

English sides tend to do well against the men from the west be it in Galway or back in their homeland. The abrasive style of rugby seems to be effective against the westerners and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed under Andy Friend. Sale are good, their Premiership position underlines as much but outside of their starting 15, they struggle for quality in reserve and this was only underlined by their decision to use only three replacements in this one.

Connacht by contrast used their entire 23 man squad as they have done almost all season. In fact, that might be the most important point to take away from this season’s Challenge Cup campaign. Andy Friend has dug deeper into Connacht resources during this competition than anyone could have envisaged at the outset of the campaign, resting key frontline players and using a total of 40 players over the the five games to date, winning four along the way and still in the hunt for the last eight heading into the final round trip to Bordeaux.

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

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