Tiernan O’Halloran: ‘We can beat Toulouse again’
Connacht have their fate in their hands as they take on the four-time champions in Sunday’s crunch Champions Cup showdown, bidding to repeat their 16-14 win from December 2013.
It was one of the biggest upsets ever in the history of Europe’s premier competition and a foretaste of just what Connacht could achieve under Pat Lam.
Only eight of the 23 who did duty that day for Connacht are still at the Sportsground but O’Halloran, who wasn’t involved, reckons that stunning win will be invaluable as they return to Toulouse.
“We have gone over there and won before. Not a lot of people would have been involved in that game, but there were a few and that will rub off on other guys. Hopefully we’ll go over there with a quiet confidence, but at the end of the day, we’re under no illusions either — the task at hand and the history that’s in it. They won the competition a couple of times and we’ve never got anywhere near qualifying for the knock-outs. It’s a huge game.”
The 25-year old, who has now chalked up 117 appearances since his debut in the 2009-10 season, said the shock win at Europe’s most successful club is still talked about, but that bad defeats are also brought up just as regularly!
“That was the start of Pat’s reign and we thought: ‘We’ve something special here. We can go over to one of the kingpins in Europe and get a win over there’.
“The circumstances we did it in were incredible. From then on, we reviewed that game a lot. Even eight nine rounds later, we were still looking at Toulouse away, (Pat) showing good things that we need to do in the game. Pat still brings up a game we lost to Edinburgh about four years ago, but he still talks about the Toulouse win as well. It’s those memories that get you thinking about things we need to do.”
The Galway native, capped for the first time in South Africa in the summer, said they are under no illusions taking on a Toulouse side fighting for their survival in Europe after being pipped at the death away to Wasps at the weekend.
“They’re colossal men, they dwarf our fellas. I suppose we’ll try to move the ball around the park to get their bigger lads moving. Hopefully, that will cause a slight lapse in concentration at a key moment and we can capitalise.
“That’s the key issue, if we get any sniff of anything we have to capitalise, we have to execute. Because going over there you’re not going to get that many opportunities to score tries. It’s important that detail is there when we run any type of line, any set-play that we’re really spot on with anything we do,” he added.
It remains to be seen if out-half Jack Carty recovers to travel but O’Halloran believes that scrum-half John Cooney, whose move to Ulster on a two-year deal was yesterday confirmed, will again deputise superbly if needed.
“I thought he did really well. The thing about John is he’s got so much confidence. I think they mentioned it to him a few weeks ago that he’d have to kick and he was, like: ‘yeah I’ll kick’ straight away. He had no issues with it at all and then went out and slotted pretty much all his kicks that week. That’s the kind of guy John is, you give him a task and he steps up straight away.
“It helps being a nine as well, with the communication and knowing where your forwards are meant to go. but Pat’s system definitely suits a 10 that’s not necessarily always comfortable in that position.
“It’s a simple enough system, but at times there can be other ways we need to play when we’re not playing that system. But John did really well. We’ll see how we are but he might have to do the same again next week.”
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