Ospreys v Connacht - 31 Oct 2014

Hard to disagree with anything you've said, Borders. Lacked direction and were very lateral, kicking was woeful - if it's consistently that bad, change what you're doing! - and we lacked direction when trying to attack. Ospreys did an efficient job of sitting back, tackling competently and then picking us off when we made mistakes or they had a mismatch. Ally that with their superb job in the backrow and it made for painful viewing. Extremely frustrating. Well done Os.

Borders no.2 wrote: 26-11 at full time. After going 6-3 up after 47 minutes we were well in the match, had started the 2nd half well but as usual in all the years I've been following Connacht, when we get an important score, watch out for the restart because we are bound to screw it up. Why for the umpteenth time were we kicking it straight back to them. Marmion wants to be an international, he needs to take the smart play there. Get the ball dead, even if its only to the 10 metre line and start again.

Lam has to take some flack for starting with Layden, if Poolman was on I think we'd have been able to prevent that try and all in all he didn't fill me with any confidence in attack but particularly in defence. You can't keep kicking the ball back to Ospreys, the more ball they get the more time they have to figure ways around our defence. In the 68th minute approx we saw Daragh Leader kick a fine touch from inside his 22, it was the first time we'd seen it, every other ball had been infield or had missed touch. Of those kicks I can't remember one good tactical kick we had. Ospreys weren't hectic in that regard either but still they had some success with their tactical kicking.

After that Buckley throws a hail mary pass and suddenly we are scrambling back again and its 13-6, game over. Goes quickly to 26-6 after that.

Against the top teams your defence won't hold up to incessant pressure. There were signs of aimless kicking against La Rochelle's 2nd string, it didn't really matter that day but its a bad habit and even a team as poor as that got 2 tries against us.

When we were on the attack near the end it summed it up for me. Some good play to work a switch to the left side and Ronaldson cuts infield with a certain try waiting out wide. A couple of moments later, JP Cooney goes for the line is short, no Connacht player within a country mile and Ospreys comfortably steal it. We got some good turnovers in defence in the first half but in general our work at the breakdown wasn't up to scratch. How many penalties against us for holding on, reminded me of the last couple of seasons, it something we need to work on.

The BBC Wales boys were saying the only thing Connacht had was the scrum. Hard to disagree this evening.

This game was never going to define our season but we need to evaluate what we are trying to do in the next few weeks because for me we have a very unsatisfactory mix and match game now where we don't seem to know what the plan is and we undo a lot of good work with poor decision making. Time for the kicking coach to earn his corn as well. If we have to kick, lets kick with some purpose.

Would agree with all of that.
I thought leydon was a poor selection. Ronaldson as another poster said offered very little and his kicking was also poor so ended up a double negative, Ah yo was allowed to be isolated easily twice.
I had thought the brain freeze moments had been hammered out of the team mentality but once again they had a 15 minute complete meltdown when they went behind.
That was the time to steady the ship to do the simply things right instead they start flinging suicidal passes, hacking on and handing the opposition more easy points on a plate to make the game safe,

The backline looked like they had no harmony or slickness about them, all game shoveling the ball in slow motion between them a foot apart and 20 yards behind the gain line.
I thought the whole package was poor tonight very disappointing.

That was a poor ospreys team and they were there for the taking instead we came away with nothing.

What a frustrating game to watch ! That was not pretty. Very few positives to take from the game. Our place kicking is just not up to scratch, you can't win games or even get bonus points with kicking like that from Ronaldson. Carty does not have the confidence of the coaches, Darragh was not great when he came on. Aki had cramp ! What was that all about?

No composure or calmness in the backs, kicking when there was overlaps and not even kicking well? Really did not enjoy watching that game.

Decadence wrote: Positives - Muldoon and Harris-Wright were absolutely everywhere tonight, immense displays. Scrum was obviously great until we tired. Lineout seems to have improved a bit over the last few weeks. No obvious injury worries.

Yeah I was going to show some optimism too

Muldoon impressive
Naoupu back to his best tonight, constant move forward
JHW Ah You and Buckley ok
Aki promising
Roux and Kearney very decent

we've got half of a team

Bring in Henshaw, Poolman, Faloon, Muldoney and Muliaina and we're 90% of a team
Outhalf was, is, and remain the main issue. We 've known this for a long time

connachta wrote:

Decadence wrote: Positives - Muldoon and Harris-Wright were absolutely everywhere tonight, immense displays. Scrum was obviously great until we tired. Lineout seems to have improved a bit over the last few weeks. No obvious injury worries.

Yeah I was going to show some optimism too

Muldoon impressive
Naoupu back to his best tonight, constant move forward
JHW Ah You and Buckley ok
Aki promising
Roux and Kearney very decent

we've got half of a team

Bring in Henshaw, Poolman, Faloon, Muldoney and Muliaina and we're 90% of a team
Outhalf was, is, and remain the main issue. We 've known this for a long time

I don't really see the main problem as personnel apart from at out half, the main issue I see is the lack of a real structure and game plan. A lot of how you are looking to play the game hinges with the out half and we are limited in that respect but there were numerous examples tonight and on plenty of other nights where we are on the verge of getting things right and we kick the ball away aimlessly or take the wrong option.

Apart from all the poor kicking highlighted, in the first half we put a few phases through the hands, looked like we had the Ospreys defence slightly concerned for the first time in the game and Marmion who we all rate highly kicks a stupid ball into no mans land, Ospreys clear and we are 15 yards further back than we were and having to start from scratch again. Another feature of us this season that I don't like is everyone shovelling the ball out even when it isn't on. There were a couple of examples where we had 3 men in a very tight space near the sideline, the smart play would be to take the ball back infield a couple of yards into contact, set the ruck, the support is there and go again but we shovel it needlessly through hands and the man on the wing is a sitting duck for the defence. This isn't a new phenomenon, but we got away with it against the likes of Edinburgh.

There are a lot of positives in bits and pieces of most games and that is what is so frustrating, our good work is so frequently ruined by poor decision making.

Very concerned for the rest of the season after that performance, the display against Exeter was dismissed too easily. All these guys are quality players but in key positions that determine games we are falling way short. A lot of posts pre-season questioned our failure to secure a proven out-half that can manage a game and preferably place-kick, I didn't put as much emphasis on it at the time but that first 40 min tonight just proved the point. I'm not on here wanting to take a cut at lads that are struggling, 10 was not the only position that didn't do it's job, 13 turnovers in any match is unacceptable - particularly the standing ovation JP got from our lads when they thought he was there or there abouts. We never looked like scoring from open play and with the missed conversion after a successful line-out and maul, it was a fruitless exercise in going for their line again - resulting in another turnover at the death. Raging!

Never honestly thought we were going to win this one. Had it down for a LAP, but that was a poor display with few positives.
Scarlet play Zebre today and if they win we drop to 7th.
2 wins from our next 2 home games are an absolute must and I would go as far as saying that anything short of 10 points would be points lost.

If we had nailed our kicks that would have been an LBP, even with that poor performance.

nop, tipuric was there till the end

Thanks so much Munster for inflicting on Cardiff what they've done to us : a 78th decisive try!

Great to see Munster nick the win in the end. In years gone by these results never seemed to fall for us and it looked the same tonight but thats a good win for Munster and for us. Good to see Paddy Butler getting the decisive try, good player but playing in a very competitive area for Munster so struggling for game time.

Scarlets struggled to put Zebre away but picked up the 4 points to move level on points with us. Looking at the table, we seem to be ahead of them on games won.

Looking at the upcoming fixtures I'd expect Cardiff and Edinburgh to pick up some wins so the next 2 games are vital for us to ensure we try and keep that bit of a gap before a tough Christmas and new year schedule.

Ulster look like they are pulling clear of Dragons also but really don't think Dragons or the 2 Italians come into the equation for Top 6/7.

At this stage of the season (1/3 in) it looks like the final automatic qualification spot might come down to a race between ourselves and Scarlets so critically important that we get max point from our two matches

Shelflife wrote: Im a bit confused, while im a bit disappointed with the actual game, and i thought that we were well in with a decent chance at half time, the best i had hoped for before the game was a LBP.

Lets be clear about this, Ospreys are top of the league, unbeaten,with a points diff of +127 and 21 tries to their names, they were at home, were were without 3 international standard players (henshaw,white and leader) a centre just off the plane and a 5 day turnaround. Yes Ospreys were missing International players as well and they had a 5 day turnaround as well but their squad is deeper and they have been dining at the top table for a while, also their travel plans involved a 7 hr round bus trip as opposed to 4 flights.

Have we improved that much that we expect to beat league leaders away from home ? so far this season we are up 12pts on last year, assuming we maintain that , it puts us in the mix for 6th place.

Not the best of displays and frustrating, but lets not lose the run of ourselves, keep the faith !!

No-one really expected a result here. Likewise, a losing bonus point would have been an excellent result for me but good a squad as Ospreys have they were missing 18 players and to put the flip side on what you are saying we should have been the more co-ordinated team as our lads are used to playing with one another each week. Ospreys had a new front row, new half backs etc. so the fact that we were in the game at half time was as much to do with the Ospreys new look team finding their feet and some good defence from us (despite us handing them endless possession) as anything.

While it wasn't surprising to see us well beaten at the breakdown, what worried me was that we kicked with no purpose and took wrong options at key junctures. If the lads are looking back through the DVD its car crash stuff at the breakdown, Lacey reffed it the same for both teams which should have meant after the initial couple of penalties, we copped on and made sure players weren't isolated at the breakdown. No use arriving on the scene when Ospreys have got over the ball.

I'm also of the belief that we have messed up how we were going to play the last 3 games through bizarre selections. Close to our strongest team at home against a side who would struggle in the AIL and then 2 half and half teams with some completely random selections for the next two games, basically writing them both off.

In summary, the result didn't particularly bother me, the manner of the performance did.

We move on to Zebre and Scarlets and hopefully we can get back on track but there is a lot to work on if we want to be realistic candidates for Top 6/7.