Indiscipline hurts Connacht badly in Cup thrashing

Harlequins 47Connacht 8

Rob Murphy  at The Stoop

A Heineken Cup low point for Connacht. After ten and a half games in the competition where the men from the West hadn’t shirked an inch in some tough matches, they served up a fairly abject second half display at The Stoop shipping five tries against a Quins side in second gear.

Devoid of experience of any kind in the backline and lacking one or two key components up front, Connacht were put to the sword by one of Europe's best. Conor O’Shea is doing a remarkable job in west London, the ethos he has instilled was on full display here and it’s mighty impressive.

Harlequins didn’t set out to score at will from the start, they earned the right to destroy Connacht over the first half hour, absorbing the giddy start by the visitors as if they had expected as much and slowly grinding down their opponents through phase after phase of hard yards and grinding set piece play.

Even with all the luck in the world on the injury front, Connacht would have been beaten here but coming in, the sense of doom around the forced absence of Dan Parks, George Naoupu and Dannie Poolman was palpable, so when Eric Elwood’s men started with real intent and heart on sleeve attacking play, it was encouraging and in keeping with the Mervue man’s ethos.

Line breaks were prevalent, three in the opening 20 minutes, their only three in the entire match in fact. They also notched up the bulk of their offloads in the tackle and 285 metres gained in the match during a frantic start to the contest.

That's not to say it was one way traffic, far from it. Quins were still edging the contest overall with bone crunching tackles needed on every phase and each scrum a bigger collision than the last.

All these hits and clean outs were taking their toll on Connacht but the evidence of a collapse wasn't there yet. It was building towards a dam burst but before that, the visitors had their moments.

A Robbie Henshaw inspired break down the short side started the excitement. The full back was Connacht best performer by a distance, 41 metres gains, nine positive runs, two excellent garryowens, a couple of fine aerial takes and five tackles thrown in for good measure.

Tiernan O'Halloran made the most meters for the men in blue and white with 78 and it was he who had the most memorable attacking moment of the entire game for Connacht. A brilliantly worked backline move that used Dave McSharry as a decoy (he didn't carry once in the game), drew the defence and allowed Jarvis feed O'Halloran on the loop.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.