Connacht Signing Announcments - 2012-13

id agree that we are ok at hooker but ultimately would like to see someone like Henry coming in there to replace Flavin in next 12mths or so. Dont know anything about dermot murphy so cant comment.

I also think we will be ok at 7 wth Grace and coeely backing up joc assuming Ray goes.

Does anyone know what the story with anderson is. We have flogged Mul all season and this guy was signed to share the workload but we havent seen him. Has he been injured or or do we need to offload and sign decent cover here?

Im a firm believer we need a decent signing at 9 with stringer my personal favourite. I dont really rate pod and murphy has looked lazy and unmotivated for long periods of this season. I like what ive seen of moore and given our obvious extra expenditure we mite get away with dolan and marmion as back up here.

If Henry is let go and we keep tonetti we will need one iq signing here. WEitten has been suggested by some here but i dont know enuf about him to comment. A cheeky 1yr offer for jj hanrahan might be A good temporary solution for both parties.

I agree wit the sentiments about the wings. The only concern would be whether tuohy recovers well from his injury. Again i echo what happened with Mccrea? if eric doesnt rate him or anyone else for that matter he should get rid and replace with someone he does rate and will use. A suggestion i would have for here given our budget restrictions would be luke o dea who has impressed me no end this season but will be well down pecking order. He is also an ennis man so galway would prob appeal to him on all fronts.

Full back has a lot of cover in squad but does anyone know if Loxton is recovering?

swift4prez wrote: cows id be happy with flavin at hooker, always does a very good job and his lineouts are close to 100%.

fetu has time to prove himself but what has happen to mark mc crea AGAIN???? id have him at 14.
when he stopped playing he had a little injury but nothing serious

If I was McCrea or Anderson I wouldn't be very happy and if Whitten was to ask me if signing for Connacht is a good idea I'm afraid the answer would be a flat out negative. For those boys the Connacht 'game time' mantra is a lie.

Anderson may have been signed to cover Mul but Mick Kearney has proven to be a better signing. And lets not forget how good Andrew Browne was at 6 last year. I don't know if Anderson can play 7 or 8, but if he can he should concentrate on that, because right now we have 6 well covered and two injury prone 7s and an overworked George at 8.

Frank Murphy causes me so much head scratching to a casual observer it probably looks like I have a major infestation. He was excellent in our HEC games. It's as if he needed those games to get motivated. Now everyone likes to think of some players as 'big game' players, but we play a lot more 'normal games' than bigs ones and can't afford passengers.

I think that anderson is a 6 who can also play 2nd row. Not the biggest 2nd row in the world tho but then again neither is macca and it doesnt hold him back. Dont think he has the skill set for 7 or 8.

rossie wrote: id agree that we are ok at hooker but ultimately would like to see someone like Henry coming in there to replace Flavin in next 12mths or so. Dont know anything about dermot murphy so cant comment.

Nobody, i was suprised by Henrys age when you highlighted it. I thought he was 23 on the basis that he had just graduated from Munsters acadamy. He is Munsters starting hooker in B+i cup team though and has been for 2 seasons now and is highly rated there if down the pecking order. Fogarty is being released and Flannery may yet have to retire(its still unclear apparently) which would put him up to third. Given that flavin is 33 i thought that in 12mths or so he mite be a good signing.

Given that we are reportedly working off a wage budget of 3m with white and parks taking a big slice of that over the next 2 yrs any other signings will have to be from other acadamies/squads most likely from the other 3 provinces. Hopefully we have enough for one more big signing but if so i agree with connacht cows that a scrum half is top of requirements.

sea_point wrote: Absolute Legend - the man has broken himself several times over in the Green of Connacht an absolute warrior for us with great skills to boot. If he's interested in coaching there should be an academy role for him?

sea_point wrote: Depends on budget but my feeling is that Eric will have to choose to etiher retain Henry for another season or sign Kyle, ideally if the budget stretched we'd keep both

Did Noc not play some games at 12 for Ulster?

noc jarvis and duffy play centre as well. we have plenty of wingers and others to replace duffy at full back etc. spend money on 9 and 8 and we will be grand

Rossie

I forget Flavin is that old constantly. Hooker is an are we need to keep an eye out for talent.

If I am not mistaking Henry played prop on the 21s for Connacht a few years ago. I don't think he was academy with us at all. People in Limerick and Cork say that a factor with a players success is their back-round. Henry played with UL, whos coach is now the Munster A coach. I am delighted to see a Connacht player getting on down there and wish him all the best.

I know it is just me being greedy but I just want us to recruit as highly rated as possible and feel we could do better.

I am delighted with the Parks signing and think he will offer a lot to the team. There have been plenty of times this year we looked like a ship without a rudder and I feel that experience will guide the team.

rossie wrote: Did Noc not play some games at 12 for Ulster?

Without meaning to put words in peoples mouths, was the general concencous last summer that in order to improve, Connacht needed to
1. Keep the majority of the sqaud together
2. Pick up young players, promising players
3. Sign some experienced players, coming towards the end of their careers with a know how, of how to win games?

I think we've checked most of those boxes already
We've brought throw Griff and O'Halloran more this season, as well as Loughney getting more starts.
We've brought in people like McSharry
We've signed White and Parks
We've signed numerous players to contract extensions

I'm very happy with how everything is been handled within the club right now.
If the crowds stay consistent/grow, we have a decent to bright future.

As for Parks, I know a few people worry about his play from hand, but we now have a kicker who we can be confident of making the majority of kicks. When we earn a penalty now at the 10m line, and we point to the posts, we should be pretty confident that the kick is going over.
I dont have that confidence at the moment, and didnt have it fully with Keatley either

If Connacht have Parks, NOC, Nikora and Jarvis on the books next season it would behoove one of them to gain some versatility between now and then if they are interested in playing above AIL level. I'm going to assume right out of the gate that it won't be Parks or NOC. I believe Jarvis is on a developmental contract this year and if he is back next season it's because they plan to bring him along at outhalf so they won't mess about with him by playing him out of position. That leaves Nikora with the option to either work at centre or fullback or find other employment. He has to assume his playing time will become even more limited next season so move is quite possible.

Jarvis can play center so maybe they plan on switching him there? To be honest I'd like to see him at 12 for at least one game. I really think Center is our most vulnerable position. We have McSharry and Griffin who are good but injury prone. Henry and Tonetti's contracts are up at the end of the season and no ones heard anything about them resigning. It doesn't mean they won't but there's being no rumours/announcements. That only leaves us with two out and out centers.