Speaking of LBPs, let go back to Eric's first season in charge. His mantra was no matter if you were losing, just keep going at at least get a losing bonus, because if you're within 7 near the end you've always a chance of sneaking it, and if you don't at least you don't got home empty handed.

And when Eric took over Connacht was LBP central. Seven LBPs which could have been wins if we only had a kicker. Enter Dan Parks, the clutch kicker, so get us over the edge. But it just hasn't worked. In Eric's last season we had only one more win, but even fewer LBPs (3). Now look at us, 6 LBPs is more or less Eric's debut season figure, exactly the thing Dan (and the rest) were supposed to convert into wins, but this season our kicking percentages were worthy of an U16 league.

Never mind a defence coach, we need someone who can either kick, or teach players to kick.

Borders no.2 wrote: -106 (which is more likely to disimprove than improve) compared to -64 in terms of scoring difference. 6 wins (max 7) compared to 8 + 1 draw last season.

to be honest, we'd need to look at the graph of how much we shipped early in the season compared to the latter half to get a real idea of how much progress, if any, was made. But conceding 40-50 points more over 22 games for a team that no longer has a defence coach isn't really that bad a stat. It doesn't mean we haven't gone backwards, but it means some perspective is needed.

We've scored 37 tries already this season compared to 32 in total last year. And we've scored 336 points in 20 games compared to 358 in 2012/13.

We've allowed as many points now as we did at the end of last season, so that's not good, because it will obviously change unless we shutout our final two teams. For anyone who needs to know, Connacht have a single shutout in Celtic League history, in the very first season in 2001 against Caerphilly.

The danger with any stat is cherry picking. We can all find results that support the positives or negatives. End of the day, though, the question is are we better off? And I'm afraid the answer to that, so far this season, is between "barely" and "nope", but considering new coaches and a loss of a defence coach, we've done not too bad. Doesn't mean I'm happy, though.

At times like this I often stop and wonder what Faruk must be feeling.

Overall you've got some good points and I'm not going to defend the Ulster and Edinburgh results. At the same time while there may not have been huge blow outs last season Connacht were nilled in three provincial games and against Biarritz, possibly one more? I forget. I could forgive the Ulster one but after that it was too many.

In the end its swings and roundabouts, the only thing that is quite clear cut is our (ie Park's) kicking has been way below subpar this year and that's cost badly in a number of games.

I do feel we're notably more competitive than last season simply because we've twice as many lbp's as last year.

Its hard to argue we are hugely more competitive than last season really. Just because the scores are more Super 15 than we are accustomed to doesn't mean our competitiveness has increased. We need to win against Cardiff just to match last season's points total.

-106 (which is more likely to disimprove than improve) compared to -64 in terms of scoring difference. 6 wins (max 7) compared to 8 + 1 draw last season.

Ok we've a few more bonus points got but looking through them, the 3 (h&a) against Scarlets all came from coming back from well down when Scarlets had been in control. The 1 against Munster came with the game over when Munster made a raft of changes. That's not to say I don't admire our resilience in getting some reward in those games.

Glasgow at home, we were always chasing the game after a bad start and never really looked like winning it. Leinster away and Glasgow (by all accounts) away were two we blew.

We have had some very bad hammerings this season. I'm not looking at Eric's tenure with rose tinted glasses, there were a number of issues there but under Eric while we definitely didn't pose as big an attacking threat but you could count the number of hammerings over his three seasons in charge on one hand. This season they've been numerous and the points against column in games has hit Bradley levels far too regularly. Under Eric we were rarely a soft bonus point for the big teams but we have had too many of those days this season.

I have heard plenty of people dress up Saturday but the reality is Munster walked the bonus point at their ease and the game was over at half time.

Edinburgh away, Saracens away, Ulster away were bad beatings but there are plenty of games this season where we've never been in with a chance of winning the game but managed to make the scoreboard respectable.

Its been a change of style and with no defence coach etc. there were always going to be issues and there is a lot of positives in what we are trying to do but we've become too easy to get tries against this season. As players get used to the system it will help but even allowing for that defensively I don't feel confident with us anymore. We used to give away a lot of 3 points opportunities to the opposition but be relatively solid, this season every time a decent team puts us through a few phases I feel its inevitable we'll concede.

Yes Connacht have conceded more tries than last season.

They've also scored 5 more tries than last season, with two games spare.

They also have 4 TBP and 6 LBP so far this year compared to 1 and 3 respectively.

They've also scored more tries than the three teams above them in the league, although of course this could change by the end of the season.

Even if you accept that defense is significantly worse than last season, which I don't quite agree with yet, you must also note that attack is much, much more incisive, and Connacht are blatantly, hugely, more competitive than last season.

Just because we moan about something doesn't mean it's true

For the record, our defence this year is worse than it has been in any of the last three years (no point going back further; we were consistently awful for six straight years):

Season T-A/Game Pts-A/Game
2010/11 1.95 20.87
2011/12 1.64 19.68
2012/13 1.95 19.18
2013/14 2.25 22.10

Note that tries conceded doesn't always correlate to points conceded (e.g. last season we conceded more tries but fewer points) but this year it seems to (third most tries conceded, third most points conceded).

However defence is certainly not our number one problem.

Only 4 teams have scored more tries, but all bar Zebre have scored more points. Whatever way you look at it, this season as been defined by poor goalkicking above all other factors.

its_phil wrote:

rossie wrote: The basic foundation of any good team in any code is defence and connacht have been poor in both structure and one on one basics in defence for the 3 to 4 seasons ive watched them. Every team ive ever been involved with make themselves as difficult as possible to beat first and foremost before working on the rest. Connacht have failed miserably in that regard in spite of their improvements in other areas.

Completely untrue with regards failed miserably. 09/10 (before Italians came in) we were bottom with most tries conceded and most points conceded in 18 games. The following seasons looked like this:

TA PA
2010/11: 6TH 7TH
2011/12: 6TH 7TH
2012/13: T5TH 7TH

That is a constant level of consistency and last year our main problem was coughing up cheap 3 point penalties. Your talking about being hard to beat first and foremost. I find it no coincidence that our steady rise up the table over 3 seasons was down to the defence more than anything else which made us hard to beat. The problem was being hard to beat doesn't always win matches as can be seen in our poor try scoring and points scoring.

If you want to criticise this years defence by all means, it is more than understandable. But the previous three years defensively to be termed "failed miserably" is simply unfounded and was actually the backbone of our rise because I know our attack wasn't.

For as long as ive been on this forum people have lamented defensive systems failures and missed one on one tackles. Failure to put pillars on rucks v glasgow or not covering the blind side at scrum time v quins spring to mind. The tries scarlets scored from 2m out a few weeks ago also springs to mind. Its the achilles heel of this team.
It may be better now than it was in 2010. That doesnt mean its good enough. The departure of a defence coach should not mean the collapse of a defence system.

OldSchool wrote: There are a lot of improvement in how Connacht are playing now compared to the start of the season.
Defence is a problem, IRFU need to send Les Kiss west during the summer to help out in this area.

Our front row needs to start learning a few tricks of the trade and fast, when Munster scrummaged fair we had the better of them. Munster pack used their experience all over the pitch and played the ref better than Connacht

10 is still an issue and a backup 9 is required, Marmion looked tired on Saturday

I think Lam has a lot to do, as the results show if you don't defend the ball against the top teams you will get hammered

Agree with pretty much all of this, the Munster tricks in particular. I'm not one to advocate dirty play but at the same time we can't be the only team playing to the strictest form of the rules, it won't do us any good.
The amount of times DOC managed to pull a Connacht player out of a ruck/out of attacking line, often by the neck, was probably worth a 3-6 point swing all on its own. Kilcoyne is a horrible prop tbh when forced to scrummage legally but the coaching staff are smart enough to have taught him how to put his opponent off, set up 'wrong' to give him an edge, bore in slyly, etc. In the earlier fixture (and throughout much of the season) Munster made very effective use of illegal pillars/blockers at the ruck.

a backup 9 is required,

Peter du Toit is back playing for Clontarf could be worth a punt or Caolin Blade.

There are a lot of improvement in how Connacht are playing now compared to the start of the season.
Defence is a problem, IRFU need to send Les Kiss west during the summer to help out in this area.

Our front row needs to start learning a few tricks of the trade and fast, when Munster scrummaged fair we had the better of them. Munster pack used their experience all over the pitch and played the ref better than Connacht

10 is still an issue and a backup 9 is required, Marmion looked tired on Saturday

I think Lam has a lot to do, as the results show if you don't defend the ball against the top teams you will get hammered

its_phil wrote:

rossie wrote: The basic foundation of any good team in any code is defence and connacht have been poor in both structure and one on one basics in defence for the 3 to 4 seasons ive watched them. Every team ive ever been involved with make themselves as difficult as possible to beat first and foremost before working on the rest. Connacht have failed miserably in that regard in spite of their improvements in other areas.

Completely untrue with regards failed miserably. 09/10 (before Italians came in) we were bottom with most tries conceded and most points conceded in 18 games. The following seasons looked like this:

TA PA
2010/11: 6TH 7TH
2011/12: 6TH 7TH
2012/13: T5TH 7TH

That is a constant level of consistency and last year our main problem was coughing up cheap 3 point penalties. Your talking about being hard to beat first and foremost. I find it no coincidence that our steady rise up the table over 3 seasons was down to the defence more than anything else which made us hard to beat. The problem was being hard to beat doesn't always win matches as can be seen in our poor try scoring and points scoring.

If you want to criticise this years defence by all means, it is more than understandable. But the previous three years defensively to be termed "failed miserably" is simply unfounded and was actually the backbone of our rise because I know our attack wasn't.

Aka The Forshaw Years. Had we ever even had a specialist defence coach before Forshaw came in?

Looking at Sales defensive record from this season compared with last year will show you the impact of a decent defence coach. I think it was Will Greenwood a month of two back during one of Sales games touted Forshaw as the best signing in the Aviva given the impact he has had with Sale.

rossie wrote: The basic foundation of any good team in any code is defence and connacht have been poor in both structure and one on one basics in defence for the 3 to 4 seasons ive watched them. Every team ive ever been involved with make themselves as difficult as possible to beat first and foremost before working on the rest. Connacht have failed miserably in that regard in spite of their improvements in other areas.

Completely untrue with regards failed miserably. 09/10 (before Italians came in) we were bottom with most tries conceded and most points conceded in 18 games. The following seasons looked like this:

TA PA
2010/11: 6TH 7TH
2011/12: 6TH 7TH
2012/13: T5TH 7TH

That is a constant level of consistency and last year our main problem was coughing up cheap 3 point penalties. Your talking about being hard to beat first and foremost. I find it no coincidence that our steady rise up the table over 3 seasons was down to the defence more than anything else which made us hard to beat. The problem was being hard to beat doesn't always win matches as can be seen in our poor try scoring and points scoring.

If you want to criticise this years defence by all means, it is more than understandable. But the previous three years defensively to be termed "failed miserably" is simply unfounded and was actually the backbone of our rise because I know our attack wasn't.

I wasn’t expecting a win in this fixture but the manner of the defeat was pretty galling. We might as well have gift-wrapped the points for them. That decision to turn down 3 and kick for the corner when we were 5 points down was insanity. That’s the sort of thing you try against Zebre, not a Munster team we’ve beaten once in the professional era. Ten minutes later they were out of touch and it was game over. Poor decision making and weak defence have haunted us for a long time. The weaknesses in our pack have been well-documented and discussed already and I hate singling anyone out but Falloon and McKeon were shocking and should have been called ashore far earlier than they were. I know Willie’s just back from injury and we have a tiny squad but he was a liability. McKeon lost the ball almost every time he took it into contact. The backs all looked pretty sharp, Poolman, Leader and Nikora particularly so, which is encouraging but I found myself wondering if I could be bothered renewing my season ticket as I left the ground which was the most depressing thing of the day for me. I am starting to get sick of the wild inconsistency produced by this team and the devastating lows and very occasional highs that come with being a Connacht supporter. Or maybe it’s the post-bank holiday/yet another defeat blues talking here

The basic foundation of any good team in any code is defence and connacht have been poor in both structure and one on one basics in defence for the 3 to 4 seasons ive watched them. Every team ive ever been involved with make themselves as difficult as possible to beat first and foremost before working on the rest. Connacht have failed miserably in that regard in spite of their improvements in other areas.

clanman wrote: Rob pennie said it all for me in his post-match interview decribing our match compared to munster's next match as 'Chalk and Cheese', a polite way of saying just what a lack of a challenge Connacht are these days, we are a push-over for the majority of teams. A very frustrating season which highlighted for me some of the major weaknesses in our game-plan and has been already said a lack of grunt, i was worried at the start of the season when Glasgow came to the Sportsground and grunted us off the field. We need some big men as it doesn't matter how good the team is at passing if you have'nt got the basic strength and power then we we're always going to suffer. We need to be looking to sign internationlas or ex-internationals as hard as that might be to attract that calibre of player to the West of Ireland.

We aren't a pushover for the majority of teams. We've got six LBP's this year and we could have had another one if Miah had got those touchline conversions. We certainly weren't a pushover on Saturday either, Munster got more than a good game and were gifted three tries. Toulon are the best team in Europe, the majority of teams in Europe are chalk to their cheese. Toulon would beat most international sides.

I have to say I thought Jack Dineen did well also. For a lad in the sub-academy who only converted to Hooker this season he didn't embarrass himself.