Severe test for high flying Connacht
Date Published: 15-Apr-2010
Dara Bradley
Connacht’s eight match unbeaten run at the Sportsground, which stretches back to September, faces a severe test this Sunday (5.05pm) when they take on Munster, a team they have defeated only once in 32 attempts since that famous 20-16 win in Galway in 1986.
On the face of it, it’s a woeful record. But the statistic masks the hard luck stories, the heroic defeats and moral victories and, with a bit of luck, several of those 32 encounters could well have ended up a similar result to Connacht’s December 2008 sweet 12-6 victory over their Southern rivals at College Road.
The last time Connacht lost at the Sportsground was when they fell 30-6 to Ulster on September 25, a dire result – and a performance – that led many pundits to declare the Westerners’ Magners League season was effectively over, even at such an early stage. Oh how wrong they were.
Since then, Connacht have blazed a trail through the Amlin European Challenge Cup and claimed a few memorable scalps in the league – they now find themselves fighting battles on two fronts, both of which offer the chance to qualify for the coveted and financially lucrative Heineken Cup.
Connacht can now qualify for the Heineken Cup by winning the Amlin Cup and/or by finishing ahead of Ulster as the third placed Irish Province in the League, which gives Sunday’s inter-provincial clash with Munster an added importance, particularly since Ulster are only four points in front (although that could change as Ulster play Glasgow this Friday night).
They can also qualify if Leinster or Munster win the competition this year but captain John Muldoon says Connacht’s destiny is in their own hands and they will be going all out to qualify in their own right.
The Portumna man says at the start of every year when the fixtures are announced, the Munster matches are the ones the team always looks for first and this team is thirsty for revenge for the away leg, woeful 35-3 defeat in Thomond Park earlier this season.
“The defeat to Munster earlier this year may not be relevant now but it will certainly have relevance for us because we were very disappointed that day. I think we gave them far too much respect in Thomond and we didn’t stick to our game plan and we want to put the disappointment of that defeat behind us and keep our unbeaten home record intact,” he said.
Asked if they would be holding back with a view to not sustaining injuries ahead of the Toulon semi-final in a couple of weeks, Muldoon said: “Absolutely not, we don’t want to be putting all our eggs into the Toulon basket”.
He added: “We are trying to build a brand and to increase our core support base and we want to keep winning and turn the Sportsground into a fortress – already we know teams don’t like coming here and we want to keep it that way. We are taking the Magners League seriously; we want to be in the Heineken Cup and we want to get off the bottom of the table.