Odds against them but Connacht set for massive effort

Dara Bradley

BY most people’s reckoning Connacht’s slim hopes of progressing further in Europe this season will be well and truly extinguished this weekend when they take on the English champions, Harlequins, in London on Saturday (1.35pm).

On the eve of the penultimate pool round of the Heineken Cup, head coach Eric Elwood says he hasn’t even thought about the mathematics and different permutations and scenarios that need to happen for his side to either A) qualify for the quarter-finals as one of the two best runners-up of the six pools or B) finish as one of the third, fourth or fifth best runners-up to qualify for the Amlin Challenge Cup. Both of those outcomes are still technically achievable but are fairly remote possibilities. So remote, in fact, that it’s no wonder Elwood hasn’t dusted off the abacus.

But nobody needs a calculator to know that unless the Westerners secure victory at the Stoop on Saturday, then it is curtains, and Zebre at the Sportsground the following week will be irrelevant.

In reality, the visitors are playing for pride and for their reputations and for the coach, who will step aside at the end of this season.

Given that Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins, with four or five English internationals, are high on confidence, unbeaten in Europe, top of pool 3 of the Heineken Cup, as well as top of the English Premiership having won 10 of their 13 domestic encounters so far this season, it’s easy to see why the bookies have installed them as overwhelming favourites.

One of the equally pleasuring and frustrating things about following Connacht Rugby is how every season they can rise to the challenge and ‘up their game’ when facing superior opposition in certain matches when the odds are stacked against them.

The flip side of that is Connacht are prone to falling flat and underachieving against sides that they should be beating handily and are expected to beat.

To claim another scalp and make more magic moments Connacht will have to play better than they have done all season, and for the entire 80 minutes.

In this fixture last season, Connacht were desperately unlucky to leave Twickenham without even a losing bonus point, the minimum they deserved from a barnstorming debut in the Heineken Cup.

They heroically won the return leg with 9-8 after a logic-defying defensive effort that has been elevated to legendary status; and this season, at the Sportsground, Connacht could have beaten ‘Quins, and would have, but for two lapses in concentration and mistakes that gifted the visitors the game.

Connacht had led by 10 points, 19-9, after a half hour at College Road in October, but two preventable tries just before the break swung momentum back in favour of the Londoners and they marched on, again agonisingly denying Connacht a losing bonus with an eight points winning margin.

When you look at the head-to-head record between the teams, the bookies 19-points handicap is perhaps a bit generous. Connacht on their day aren’t that far off Harlequins and Elwood has identified a game-plan that he believes can beat them: Play ‘keep-ball’.

Elwood reckons that if Connacht can keep the ball and not kick it away, deprive Harlequins of possession, and attack with confidence, speed and flair like they have attempted to do all season, then they have a chance of causing an upset. “The key for us, like we did out here in the Sportsground, we want to go out and play ball, we want to play positive rugby,” he says.

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