Elwood: Scarlets trip is crucial
Connacht’s chance of entering the European elite progressed significantly with a sensational Magners League victory over the European champions Leinster on Wednesday at the Sportsground, and that helped lift them off the bottom of the table.
It all makes for an intriguing run-in to the league, firstly involving both Irish clubs having to travel this weekend – Connacht to Scarlets and Ulster to title contenders Edinburgh.
Bradley has made eight changes for Connacht’s third game in seven days, with Liam Bibo, Tiernan O’Halloran, Eoin Griffin, Ray Ofisa, David Nolan, Dermot Murphy, Conor Higgins and Eoin McKeown all called up to the side for the Scarlets game.
This week’s results are crucial because the duo have to meet in the final game of the season in Ravenhill early next month, with Connacht seeking to turn around a stunning 30-6 deficit in September’s opening rounds.
Connacht’s assistant coach Elwood, who is delighted with the improvement in form, hopes things will be much clearer by Sunday.
For now, he is simply pleased to have helped plot Leinster’s downfall with coaching director Bradley. “We did well, we came back strongly, I felt, because we were so disappointed against Munster (the previous weekend); we believed we had a chance there but didn’t up the effort enough obviously and they (Munster), to their credit, lifted it to a high.
“They obviously knew they were going to get a tough game in Galway and came prepared, I suppose; they had to rest some players for a variety of reasons and that was understandable. However, they still had a good strong pack out and that’s where they took us on; they had a good maul, they picked and went from the base and they did what Munster always do well – take on the opposition up front,” said Elwood.
But with a sensational victory over a stronger Leinster under the belt and with Ulster in their sights, Elwood is under no illusions and has no intention of making assumptions that an end of season gallop will be good enough to see them through.
“It would be great, of course,” he said, “but we’re a long way away from that at the moment; we have other things on our mind now (Amlin Cup semi-final against Toulon). Our goal all year has been to make our way into the Heineken Cup; we are growing, developing, improving and our home record is very good. Yet, we need to get that consistency into our game that will secure the results we need to do better in the Magners League.
“I suppose the proximity of our match this week against Leinster from the RDS – a match we should have won – to this helped us. For starters, we were really so disappointed with our performance against Munster that there was probably bound to be a reaction.
“We got off on the right foot against Leinster, didn’t take a step back and then just took our chances. It was brilliant to score three tries against a team of that stature and not to concede one (other than a penalty try) was good; it was an outstanding response to the defeat by Munster and it puts us in a much better position than the one we were in before the game,” he said.
“This is a professional environment where guys are fronting up to every challenge that’s put in front of them and, I think, that’s maybe why we are where we are with a relatively small squad.
“We know what we have to do to develop; it’s got to be about producing results and upgrading facilities for the supporters. That’s what we are striving for here; it may not be done to the same scale as that enjoyed in Munster and Leinster but, if we do certain things right I am confident people will come to our games and that will be of huge benefit to rugby overall.”
CONNACHT (squad): Backs: L Bibo, K Campbell, E Griffin, I Keatley, T Nathan, M Nikora, T O’Halloran, C O’Loughlin, B Tuohy, A Wynne.
Forwards: A Browne, A Flavin, C Higgins, R Loughney, M McComish, E McKeown, R Morris, D Murphy, D Nolan, J O’Connor, R Ofisa, B Upton.
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