Regrets? Connacht will have a few

Toulouse 19 Connacht 10: Two points. Two measly points was all that separated Connacht from the losing bonus point they needed to secure a historic first step through to the knockout stages of the European Cup and it will eat away at them for an eternity.

The worst of it all, is the realisation that they left it behind them.

Pat Lam’s side spent an age looking for the penalty or the try that would prolong their Champions Cup campaign in a frenetic final quarter but they coughed up ball time and again on a day when they were let down by their execution of the basics.

The regrets will only magnify in time. With Zebre in their pool and Toulouse and Wasps defeated in Galway, this was the chance to build on last season’s Guinness PRO12 success and for Pat Lam to add to his legacy before leaving for Bristol.

It wasn’t to be. To Toulouse the spoils. In their case, a date in Thomond Park.

In fact, though, Connacht shouldn’t have been within an asses’ roar of progress, in the first place. When Joe Tekori claimed the third try for Toulouse, there was over half an hour to go, 16 points separating them and an error-prone Connacht still weren’t at the races.

They ended the day having conceded 16 penalties and 15 turnovers, they were mullered at the breakdown, despite fielding two opensides and they missed 26 of the 128 tackles they were asked to make, most of them on rumbling behemoths.

Toulouse married that bulk with a cutting edge out the back. Gael Fickou and Arthur Bonneval scythed through for two tries inside the opening 18 minutes, the hosts made nine clean breaks in total (to Connacht’s two) and they left 26 defenders beaten, in the process.

Make no mistake, this would have been a great escape.

“That was frustrating,” said Lam after what was his last European game as Connacht coach. “We were right in that game. We made errors but to beat (Toulouse and Wasps) just shows how far we’ve come at home, but we had a realistic chance to win here.

“Giving away 14 points, I’d say there’s lots of people at home that thought, ‘this is gone, they’re going to get their four tries.’ Unfortunately, we are a team that needs to play as a team. Dropped balls, errors, wrong systems are things that will hurt us badly.

“It’s been doing that for the last four or five weeks for our team.”

Injuries can probably explain a large part of that. Connacht welcomed back five players from casualty for this one, including Jack Carty at ten, but they had more than a dozen still in rehab and the mixing and matching of individuals and units clearly played a part in the litany of errors.

Tackles, and lots of them, were the order of the day for every Connacht player in a first half that saw them claim just 25% possession and 5% less territory. Toulouse, helped by their opponent’s inadequacies, scored two tries and led 14-3 by the interval.

The only question was how the game hadn’t already been put to bed.

Fickou’s try was the full stop on a staggering move that began beyond the Toulouse ten-metre line in the fourth minute and meandered upfield courtesy of some punishing carries by the grunts and a huge break in midfield by the try scorer himself.

Bonneval’s was another dagger landed from afar with the full-back Yoann Huget sweeping past Peter Robb inside the Toulouse half before sending his wing over as Matt Healy tried in vain to drag him down before the whitewash.

Connacht’s one contribution to the numbers game was a Craig Ronaldson penalty after 34 minutes but they ended the half having failed to put a move together in the hosts’ 22 and with Quinn Roux in the bin for illegal hands in a ruck.

The lock was back on less than ten seconds when Tekori popped over for the third Toulouse try from a lineout and maul and, though Jean-Marc Doussain missed the conversion, it didn’t change the complexion of Connacht’s predicament.

Concede another try and they would need to somehow squeeze the gap back to seven points and score four five-pointers in the process, so John Muldoon’s try six minutes later was the perfect antidote to that growing headache.

It was a score that went against the day’s narrative with Connacht executing perfectly from a lineout and subsequent scrum and Toulouse’s otherwise watertight defence switching off at the very same time.

It wasn’t a scene that would be repeated.

Time and again, Connacht manoeuvred towards the Toulouse red zone but they coughed up possession at lineouts and in the war of the jackals on the ground against a Toulouse side that had tired visibly as the second period went on.

As Lam said after, a hiding would have been easier to accept.

Stade Toulousain:

Y Huget; A Bonneval, Y David, G Fickou, P Perez; JM Doussain, S Bezy; C Baille, C Tolofua, C Johnston; R Gray, Y Maestri; J Tekori, T Dusautoir, F Cros.

Replacements:

V Kakovin for Baille and M van Dick for Johnston (both 65); G Gallan for Tekori and L Ghiraldini for Tolofua (both 68); P Faasalele for Cros (71).

Connacht:

T O’Halloran;mN Adeolokun, P Robb, C Ronaldson, M Healy; J Carty, K Marmion; D Buckley, T McCartney, F Bealham; Q Roux, J Cannon; N Fox-Matamua, J Heenan, J Muldoon.

Replacements:

S O’Brien for Fox-Matamua and D Poolman for Adeolokun (both 63); D Heffernan for McCartney (65); J Cooney for Marmion and J Andress for Bealham (both 75).

Referee:

W Barnes (England).