Frustrated Tucker rues soft Munster tries with Connacht sweating on playoffs

A memorable day in front of a provincial record 27,870 crowd for Connacht’s first fixture at MacHale Park ended with the bitter taste of regret

Munster interim head coach Ian Costello, left, and Connacht scrum and contact coach Colm Tucker before the United Rugby Championship match between Connacht and Munster at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park in Castlebar, Mayo. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

A damaging home defeat in Mayo on Saturday has left Connacht’s acting head coach looking for solutions to ongoing issues as the province turns its attention to Saturday’s Challenge Cup Round of 16 tie against Cardiff back at Dexcom Stadium.

What was a memorable day in front of a provincial record 27,580 crowd for Connacht’s first fixture at MacHale Park should have delivered a valuable URC derby victory for Cullie Tucker’s squad, but instead ended with the bitter taste of a 30-24 defeat and a plethora of regrets as the hosts face a fight to make the end of season knockout rounds.

Tucker, standing in for Pete Wilkins, who is currently out on sick leave, was frustrated on a number of levels, despite rescuing two losing bonus points with a fourth try late on from Josh Ioane.

It has left Connacht outside the top eight with four URC rounds remaining and Tucker said: “Stopping giving ourselves too much to do is the thing.

“It’s a work-on, it’s almost not playing to the scoreboard and just playing in the moment. It continues to be a work-on for us, it’s a frustrating one but we have to get to the bottom of it, because some of the rugby we played at times was fantastic.

“It was the same as last week (a 43-40 loss at Ospreys), absolutely fantastic but we’re just giving ourselves too much to do. I thought some of the tries we conceded were just too easy, and that’s hurting us as well.

“I suppose when the emotion of the occasion dies down we’ll dig into that but next week is a huge game for the club. We’ll keep fighting to the death in the URC. Obviously today is damaging, there’s no point in not saying that but we still have a massive occasion to come next week, which is exciting.” 

Connacht had plenty of chances to score a fifth try but were denied by poor execution, a TMO check chalking off replacement Dylan Tierney-Martin’s five-pointer for a dangerous tackle, and a late lineout steal by Jean Kleyn inside the Munster 22.

They were also kicking themselves for allowing Munster to not only get off to a fast start and build an 18-5 half-time lead but conceding tries minutes after their second and third scores, from Sean Jansen and Caolin Blade either side of half-time.

No.8 Jansen had scored Connacht’s first on 20 minutes, only for Craig Casey to reply three minutes later while it took just six minutes for the visitors to reply to scrum-half Blade’s 44th-minute try when Jack Crowley found a gap in the defensive line from close range.

“Yeah, incredibly frustrating and I thought the (Crowley) penalty just before half-time was incredibly frustrating as well, you know, the scrum, the 50-22 and the penalty. It’s those minutes where we have to be more accurate and better and stop shooting ourselves in the foot.”