Nerveless Connacht stand firm against Leinster to stay top
Connacht will go into the final four matches of the regular season holding a four-point lead at the top of the Guinness Pro12 table having seen off their better resourced nearest rivals in thundering fashion on a wild and memorable evening in Galway.
Yet this was no upset. The tables were not turned here on Saturday. Connacht merely continued down the path their head coach Pat Lam set down for them when he succeeded Eric Elwood three seasons ago.
For sure this was a victory by the narrowest of margins, reliant on a last-ditch defensive rearguard to keep the visitors at bay.
Of course they had been told at half-time that their 7-0 interval lead, earned from Kieran Marmion’s converted try, would not be enough to hold off a more experienced Leinster side, not only with greater, Test-hardened strength on their bench but with a stiff wind and the setting sun at their backs.
Kieran Marmion celebrates scoring the game's first try and the 50th for Connacht this season #CRLive #PRO12Rugby pic.twitter.com/cKZzhMMWH7
— Connacht Rugby (@connachtrugby) March 26, 2016
Yet the visitors from the east could only muster a couple of Ian Madigan penalties with those supposed advantages and despite a furious rally at the death, those seven points were enough for Connacht’s supporters to send the decibels through the roof of the Clan Terrace at the full-time whistle as Caolin Blade kicked the ball out of the ground.
Connacht had held their nerve, trusted their skills, and shown the composure to run the clock down as Leinster, trailing 7-6, searched desperately for the go-ahead score that would turn this game on its head. A multi-phase assault had seen the ball held up over the line. The resulting scrum had been executed well and both Ben T’eo and Dominic Ryan had inched closer to that decisive try.
Yet a clinical tackle on Ryan from the tireless man-of-the-match Eoin McKeon, followed by a great rip from Bundee Aki put fate back into Connacht’s hands with 30 seconds remaining. They could still have messed up, panicked and cleared their lines to allow Leinster to come back at them one last time. But Lam’s players have been imbued with sterner stuff. Instead of committing to more desperate tackling, they elected to retain ball. Three rucks ate up the time just as well and it was enough to see Connacht home.
No wonder Lam was pleased.
“Rugby’s more than a game. It’s about life. You build relationships, you go through things together and you build and create memories,” the Connacht boss reflected. “When you think of all the things we have been through and that’s just another one of them. We’ve been there before.
“This group work hard for each other. I said it before the game, I say it all the time. This game is not about individuals, it’s about what we do. It was such a big occasion but we channelled all of that into the structures, our systems. Keep backing your skills. Don’t go into your shell.
“Sometimes we made some decisions, maybe they weren’t right. But overall, it was tremendous effort. There’s a lot of people in the crowd shouting “kick it” (at that final turnover) but I said to the boys, ‘would you rather run or rather tackle?’
“And a lot of them prefer to run and so they just keep working off the ball and we went through lots of periods of phases into a strong wind. We just had to look after it and put them under pressure.”
With four games to go, the pressure will ramp up considerably and not just on Connacht. They travel to Ravenhill on Friday night to play an Ulster side hurting after defeat at Glasgow and desperate for a win to stay in the hunt for a play-off place while Munster will go to Galway on April 16 with the same objectives, whatever happens against Leinster at the Aviva next Saturday. And so it goes on, the meritocratic Pro12 getting a finish to savour.
For Connacht, there is also a Challenge Cup quarter-final at Grenoble, apparently with new coaching assistant Paul O’Connell on board, on April 8. But as you would expect, Lam is taking it one baby step at a time.
“The number one goal is (qualifying for) the Champions Cup, I’ve said that from the beginning. We had six (games) to go, now we’ve got five games. And I always said the quality of the performance and the way we perform in each of these games determines the rest. There’s two semi-finals there and two finals there. We only make those by the way we perform....
“....That’s what we keep drumming home, and then the thing that’s got us to where we are now.... the whole focus in the last two weeks since we beat Edinburgh was about beating Leinster and how we go about doing it and training properly.
“Now we’ve got a tough challenge, six days turnaround to a pretty physical, fired-up Ulster, who are desperate. And that’s probably what’s pleased me most. In the last six games that we’ve won, all of the teams that we’ve played it’s not a normal game.
“They are coming hard at us because they are so desperate. Their season is on the line too and Leinster rolled out some massive, massive individuals, and they are desperate to get the points.
“For our boys to win that as a team is tremendous, and now we’ve got another challenge against another Champions Cup team in Ulster, and in a place we’ve never won, so there’s another opportunity to try and break a record.”
T O’Halloran (C Blade, 60-70); N Adeolokun, B Aki, P Robb (R Henshaw, 48), M Healy; AJ MacGinty (S O’Leary, 61), K Marmion (C Blade, 75); D Buckley (R Loughney, 70), T McCartney (D Heffernan, 70), N White (F Bealham, 5); Q Roux (A Browne, 50), A Muldowney; S O’Brien (J Connolly, 65), E McKeon, J Muldoon – captain.
I Nacewa - captain; F McFadden, G Ringrose, B Te’o, L Fitzgerald (Z Kirchner, 37); I Madigan, L McGrath (E Reddan, 60); C Healy (J McGrath, 47), R Strauss (S Cronin, 50), T Furlong (M Ross, 60); R Molony, H Triggs (D Toner, 60); D Ryan, J van der Flier, R Ruddock (J Heaslip, 65).
Nigel Owens (Wales)
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