Brilliant Blade provides cutting edge for Connacht

Bayonne 27 Connacht 29

Scrum-half Blade is the latest to come off the Connacht underage conveyor belt and the 20-year old, who had only three brief appearances off the bench before Saturday night, looked perfectly at home on his first start.

It hardly mattered that Bayonne, who face Bordeaux in a relegation game next weekend, also rested a number of players but they were stronger than the side sent to Galway where Connacht picked up a bonus point win.

The upshot of it all is that Connacht will take on Exeter Chiefs in a probable pool decider at the Sportsground in January but even the loser of that clash is likely to go through to the quarter-finals as one of the best runners-up.

“We said that this tournament is important to us too. We have our priorities, we look after the Sportsground, Pro12 top six is important for us and get to the knockout stages – those are the three big goals. We are still on track, we haven’t done it yet. We are still on track for all three at the moment,” said coach Pat Lam.

He fielded an entirely new 15, four making their first starts while promising flanker James Connolly made his debut and prop Saba Meunargia also made his bow.

But Blade stole the show, not just with the tries, but with the way he kept Connacht going forward and his ability to snipe forced Bayonne on the back foot.

“He is tremendous. We do a lot of work around running around the rucks and we have to have an option around the ruck so not to always be so predictable. He ran that perfectly and he is a real battler out there, he knows there is still work-ons in his game but to come out there and show a lot of maturity that is what he is really good at. He had a tremendous game,” said Lam.

Connacht didn’t make it easy on themselves, coughing up two preventable opening half tries which saw Bayonne lead 14-3 after 18 minutes after winger Saimoni Vaka and centre Mathieu Ugalde got over.

But Miah Nikora, captaining Connacht for the first time in his six years at the Sportsground, kept the visitors in touch and put an early penalty miss behind him to finish with an impressive seven out of eight kicks.

Darragh Leader, who had difficulty initially on the slippery pitch, cut a superb line to set up the opening try for Blade after 28 minutes and Connacht trailed by just a point at the break.

But a third Bayonne try two minutes after the restart by Pierre Sayerse and a conversion and penalty from skipper Christophe Loustalot pushed them 27-16 in front by the 50th minute.

However, Connacht kept plugging away and Nikora kept slotting the kicks to reduce it to 27-22 after 68 minutes.

There was a dramatic finish. Connacht went to the corner with a penalty which Connolly won and while Michael Swift was stopped inches short, they recycled and, with the Bayonne cover expecting Blade to go wide, he spotted a gap and dived over to equalise. Nikora kept his nerve to land the conversion.

There was to be one final twist when Bayonne were awarded a penalty 25 metres out on the left, but, with their excellent kicker Loustalot gone off, Ugalde stepped forward and missed it.

Scorers for Bayonne: Tries: S Vaka, M Ugalde, P Sayerse; Cons: C Loustalot (3); Pen: C Loustalot (2)

Scorers for Connacht: Tries: C Blade (2); Conversions: M Nikora (2); Pens: M Nikora (5)

BAYONNE: J Elissalde; S Vaka, L Foketi, M Ugalde, P Sayerse; C Otazo, C Loustalot (capt); JC Van Rensburg, D Roumieu, F Lapeyrade; L Fa’aoso, PI Taele; B Chouzenoux, C Ancely, T Visensang.

Replacements: G Lovobalavu for Otazo (51), L Pointud for Van Rensburg (53), S Labouyrie for Roumieu (54), J Monribot for Visensang (54), B Duhalde for Loustalot (61), A Iguiniz for Lapeyrade (70)

CONNACHT: D Leader; N Adeolokun, C Finn, C Ronaldson, F Carr; M Nikora (capt), C Blade; R Loughney, D Heffernan, F Bealham; M Swift, A Muldowney; J Connolly, W Faloon, D Qualter.

Replacements: M Healy for Carr (5), S Meunargia for Loughney (65), S Delahunt for Heffernan (73) D McSharry for Finn (73).

Referee: I Davies (WRU).