Chop-tackler Will Connors a vital cog in Leinster machine

Saturday will see Leinster bid for a hat-trick of PRO14 titles when they face Ulster

Thu, 10 Sep, 2020 - 07:00

Simon Lewis

As the league’s leading tackler, Will Connors’ selection in the Guinness PRO14 Dream Team for 2019-20 should not have been a surprise but you sense this recognition of his talents is just the start of things to come for Leinster’s voracious young back-rower.

In a provincial back-row unit brimming with skills, pace, power and physicality, Connors is merely another cog but fast becoming a vital component of the engine driving Leo Cullen’s in its still unbeaten pursuit of a second league and European double in three seasons.

Saturday will see Leinster bid for a hat-trick of league titles when they face Ulster in the final behind closed doors at Aviva Stadium and the strength of the back-row resources at head coach Cullen’s disposal for his matchday squad was underlined again by yesterday’s PRO14 awards announcement.

Connors was named alongside Max Deegan in the back-row selection voted for by media representatives, former players and coaches from each of the five nations with participating teams while Caelan Doris polled highest in the league’s search for its Next-Gen Star of the Season.

Various permutations of the aforementioned, plus Josh Murphy, Scott Penny and the more experienced Josh van Der Flier and Rhys Ruddock, as well as latterly a fit-again Jack Conan have helped propel Leinster to 24 victories in a row since their Champions Cup final defeat to Saracens in May 2019, 22 of them this season.

No-one, though, has tackled more effectively or numerously than Connors. His tally in the PRO14 is 191, 42 of those coming in the three games since the restart - nine off the bench in the final 23 minutes of the first game against Munster and 19 from the start in the final round of regular-season games against Ulster.

There were another 14 last Friday in the semi-final victory over Munster, many of them reserved for Ireland No.8 CJ Stander. He had been the scourge of the Leinster breakdown in the first game back, his jackaling producing five turnovers and leading Cullen to bring Connors into his starting line-up to stop Stander in his tracks during the semi.

Connors had warmed up nicely for his mission with a devastating chop-tackling performance against Ulster, his taking down of big ball-carriers Stuart McCloskey and Marcell Coetzee reminiscent of Dan Lydiate’s similarly destructive effort for Wales against Ireland in the 2011 World Cup quarter-final in New Zealand.

Lydiate made 24 tackles that day, metaphorically cutting of Ireland’s attacking threat at the knees with Sean O’Brien his main focus of attention as Declan Kidney’s side crashed out at the last-eight stage in Wellington. Connors’ hugely negative impact on the Ulster gameplan two weekends ago earned the Leinster man similarly rave reviews, not least from Cullen, who appears certain to ask for a repeat in this weekend’s final.

“You think of some of the ball-carrying threats that they had with Coetzee and Stuart McCloskey and his ability just to get off the line and shut attacks down with his chop tackle. Was it 19 or 20 tackles that he made and some of them when he just stopped the attack dead in its tracks.”

Leinster team-mate Andrew Porter has tried to find out Connors’ secret though the flanker keeps his most effective weapon under wraps during in-house workouts.

“Ah no, he takes it easy in training now,” Porter said of his pack-mate. “I think he only brings it out at the weekends. I was asking him how he does it, if he could give me a few tips on it, and he doesn’t even know himself. It’s almost like a feel for him. It’s something he loves doing and you can tell he’s haring off the line and looking for the contact. It’s incredible how he does it and he’s definitely very effective with it.”

* The IRFU yesterday confirmed that another round of Covid-19 testing of players and staff at PRO14 finalists Leinster and Ulster had produced zero positive results, clearing the way for Saturday's final