Inside Track
Connacht lift the siege with greatest win ever
Inside Track with John McIntyre
European club rugby was shaken to its foundations at the Stade Ernest Wallon in southern France on Sunday afternoon. A team on a demoralising eight-match losing run and rated 25/1 outsiders somehow defied their complete no-hoper status to pull off the biggest shock in the history of the Heineken Cup.
Nobody saw this sensational Connacht win coming – and how could they? Amid widespread pre-match fears of a trouncing at the hands of the French aristocrats, Pat Lam’s squad turned logic on its head and tore the formbook to shreds in conjuring up the greatest single triumph in the province’s history as well as blowing Pool Three of the Heineken Cup wide open.
Frankly, it almost beggars belief what Connacht achieved in lowering the colours of the four-time competition winners and there was no fluke behind their 16-14 victory either. Sure, Connacht fronted up to Toulouse after their shameful late collapse against Edinburgh at Murrayfield the previous weekend, but there was more than heart behind this stunning result which is arguably the sporting upset of the year.
Much better organised defensively, playing heads up rugby and staying composed in moments of crisis, Connacht managed to bookend a tremendous Heineken Cup clean sweep for the Irish provinces. Naturally, the players were fired up in the wake of the 30 points Edinburgh mauling and this naked desire to salvage individual and squad reputations appeared to catch a possibly complacent Toulouse outfit by surprise.
There is no point trying to reconcile the Connacht team which conceded three late tries to Edinburgh to the one which went out and inflicted the first home Heineken Cup defeat on Toulouse in five years in the space of little more than a week. It just doesn’t stack up, but none of this will perturb the Connacht camp ahead of the return leg at the Sportsground on Saturday evening.
The Westerners have produced heroic once off wins from nowhere before, not least against Harlequins in their debut season in the Heineken Cup, but claiming the scalps of Toulouse is a different level altogether, especially on French soil. Leinster, Ulster and Munster all produced great performances in big wins over the weekend, but it’s Connacht who are dominating the rugby headlines after an achievement which any of their provincial rivals would have been rightly proud of.
Of course, the big challenge now for Craig Clarke and company is to reproduce last Sunday’s intensity levels and on-field organisation for the return leg. They may have diced with offside on a number of occasions, but Connacht’s intent was reflected by the manner in which they consistently swarmed-tackled the Toulouse player in possession. There was no needless concession of space or territory as the visitors pushed up hard and nine times out of ten stopped the opposition runners in their tracks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
By the time the Munster hurling championship is over, the three teams which eventually come through will be punch drunk from beating the daylights out of each other in what has been another merciless campaign down south.
But over in Leinster, Galway and Kilkenny are in cruise control, continuing to stand head and shoulders above everyone else, ensuring they will both be much fresher if not quite as battle-hardened for the All-Ireland series compared to their Southern counterparts.
It’s potentially a big advantage even though Munster have a stranglehold on the Liam McCarthy Cup for the past five years – four All-Irelands for Limerick and one for Tipperary over a period when Galway and Kilkenny teams haven’t been far away but unable to deliver the knock-out blows.
For all the brilliant and high intensity hurling in both Ennis and Thurles on Sunday, the big drama from the weekend action was Westmeath’s sensational comeback from a 17-point deficit to overhaul struggling Wexford in their own backyard. We know even double-digits leads are no longer safe in hurling, but this heroic comeback stretched the bounds of believability.
Leading by 2-15 to 0-5 at the interval, Wexford were virtually home and dry, but they collapsed without trace on the resumption and were outscored by a staggering 4-13 to 0-7 in a humiliating and embarrassing day for the Slaneysiders. Things haven’t been going well for them this year, but this represents surely an all-time low against a team which had suffered a 34-point hammering from Galway in their previous outing.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Inside Track with John McIntyre
SOMETHING very odd happened to Tyrone in the Ulster championship in early April. On their home turf of Healy Park, they were doing nearly everything expected of them when leading Monaghan by five points at half-time. You couldn’t say for definite that the match was done and dusted, but the 2021 All-Ireland champions were in pole position.
You would have expected them to drive on against an honest if limited Monaghan outfit. Instead, Tyrone didn’t score for the opening 16 minutes of the second-half and in an enthralling finale, were left stunned by defender Ryan’s Toole’s stoppage-time goal snatching the honours for the Farney men on a 2-17 to 1-18 scoreline.
A couple of weeks later, Monaghan themselves had exited the Ulster title race when Derry comfortably got the better of them (1-21 to 2-10), leaving us more puzzled than ever by Tyrone’s dramatic decline since overcoming Mayo to claim Sam barely 20 months previously. Last year, they crashed out of Ulster by 11 points to Derry and subsequently came up six short against Armagh in the All-Ireland qualifiers.
Against that background, their recent loss to Monaghan shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. Tyrone may have made a shambolic defence of the All-Ireland title, but there is still a lot of quality in their ranks. They have an adventurous ‘keeper in Niall Morgan, while the long-serving Peter Harte, Darragh Canavan, Darren McCurry, Cathal McShane, Conor Meyler, Mattie Donnelly, and Conn Kilpatrick are all top-class performers when in the mood.
There’s hardly been a word about them for the past six weeks. Tyrone are lying low, desperately trying to rediscover the verve and cohesion which took them all the way in 2021. Their pride is on the line. It makes them dangerous opponents for Galway in the opening round of All-Ireland group matches at Pearse Stadium on Saturday.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
GALWAY footballers won’t get much credit for their easy victory over Sligo in Sunday’s Connacht Final in Castlebar, but when a team achieves something that hasn’t been done for 20 years, perhaps we should be a little more appreciative of the Tribesmen retaining the JJ Nestor Cup for the first time in two decades.
To be honest, if Galway were to live up to their standing as serious All-Ireland contenders, they needed to be doing a number on Sligo. In this year’s National League, the counties were three divisions apart and though Tony McEntee’s team achieved promotion and were on a nine-match unbeaten run, a serious rise in class faced them at MacHale Park.
Granted, Sligo made a bright start with three points in the opening five minutes from Pat Spillane, Sean Carrabine and the accurate Darragh Cummins, but they would only manage two more by the break despite having the wind behind them. Though wing back Luke Towey was catching the eye with his runs up-field, Galway rarely looked under pressure.
Sligo were bravely committing numbers to the middle third, which meant they were a little light in numbers around their own posts. They couldn’t afford to lose possession coming out of their own half, but that’s what happened in the build up to Galway’s second goal. Damien Comer overturned Cian Lally and from his counter-attack, Matthew Tierney expertly finished to the net at the near post.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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