Sceptical Elwood fumes over late front-row substitution

CONNACHT coach Eric Elwood stopped short of using the term gamesmanship to describe Munster’s last ditch decision to change their loose head prop in the dying minutes of the Magners League clash of the sides at the Sportsground last night — but he was less than happy with the call.

Munster were clinging on to a 16-12 lead with flanker Niall Ronan in the bin when loose head prop Wian Du Preez was summoned to return to the action having been tactically replaced ten minutes earlier by Dave Ryan. The visitors’ scrum, augmented by winger Denis Hurley at number eight, stabilised as a result and they held out to claim the points and move seven ahead at the top of the table.

“We played a nice bit of rugby at the end and created a few scoring opportunities and then came the scrum,” said Elwood. “We seemed to be racing them over the line when they made a change for an injury and that made a huge difference, for Du Preez is a very good scrummager. We lost a little bit of momentum and couldn’t take the chance.”

Asked if he had a sense of grievance about these developments at the finish, Elwood was forthright: “ I do, yeah,” he asserted.

Asked if he believed there was an element of gamesmanship in the change, he hesitated before declaring: “I don’t know. I felt our scrum was trotting or jogging over the line. Maybe the guy had an injury, I don’t know. We felt it was a big opportunity and a few decisions went against us.”

Elwood’s Munster counterpart Tony McGahan insisted that they hadn’t done anything underhand.

“Dave Ryan is down in the dressing room now and you can have a look at him if you like,” he declared. “Eric had a grievance with it? That’s fine. We have no difficulty with that.”

Once again, the Munster scrum found itself in trouble but on the surface at any rate, McGahan wasn’t worrying unduly: “We’ve been making progress, even if it is hard to identify where that progress has been. It’s an ongoing process and once a team smells weakness, they’re going to go after it. Perception is important.”

“It’s always a tough game to come to Connacht at Christmas with a few players missing. I thought we showed tremendous grit and defence in the last 15 minutes. A few penalties gave them scoreboard advantage in the second half. There was a bit of wind and rain in our face in the first and we controlled that later on, knowing that if we were close enough we were going to get opportunities later on.”

The second-half injury to Alan Quinlan may have serious repercussions, McGahan admitted: “It could be broken or dislocated and we’ll know in the next day or two. I didn’t speak to Alan because he was already gone to hospital when the game ended.”