Inside Track
Tired and broken Connacht suffer humiliating mauling
We had hoped that the days of humiliating hammerings were behind Connacht. After all, it’s barely six weeks ago since they were the talk of European club rugby thanks to that seismic away triumph over Toulouse in the Heineken Cup. Last Saturday at Allianz Park in London, however, Craig Clarke and his overpowered team-mates were butchered in a manner so complete and frightening that it must have done serious damage to the Connacht brand.
Sponsors like to be associated with a winning product and the Western province’s 64-6 trouncing by a ruthless Saracens won’t have gone unnoticed by their financial backers. The team’s fair-day supporters could be blinking too after Saturday’s 11-try rout – by some distance the heaviest defeat suffered by any team in this season’s Heineken Cup – and it’s not going to be easy, either on or off the field, to pick up the pieces in the short term.
Let’s be honest, few really believed that Connacht could pull off another sensational away result in the competition. The heroic victory over Toulouse was not a figment of our imagination and is arguably the province’s greatest single achievement, but their complacent French hosts were also caught unawares – a reality confirmed in the return leg at the Sportsground the following weekend when the visitors easily got their revenge by a 26-point margin.
Ahead of last Saturday’s visit to London, everything was on the line for Connacht. They still had an outside chance of making the Heineken Cup quarter-finals and the positive vibes from the camp suggested that they were really up for what was admittedly a daunting challenge against the English Premiership leaders. In effect, this was the acid test for Connacht. Their cover was blown and Saracens were never going to under-estimate them, ensuring we were going to get a truer reflection of the Westerners’ real worth.
Sadly, despite Connacht holding their own 20 minutes into the contest, what subsequently unfolded made for horrific viewing as the limitations of Pat Lam’s men were routinely and regularly exposed. Some players battled bravely to the end, but the body language and flimsy tackling of others was not what we had come to expect in such a high stakes encounter. The concession of 11 tries tells its own story and only for Charlie Hodgson having a terrible day with the boot – he missed a staggering nine kicks at goal – Saracens could have broken 80 points.
Against that background, it’s hard to credit that England’s top team were actually 6-5 behind midway through the opening-half. The recalled Dan Parks had slotted two penalties while Gavin Duffy’s line break in the opening seconds suggested that Connacht were, at least, going to be competitive. But once Chris Ashton went over for Saracens’ first try, there was an immediate sense of foreboding about what lay ahead for the visitors.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
LITTLE did we think that when Galway and Mayo fought out an absorbing draw in the opening round of the National League at MacHale Park last January that the great Connacht rivals would end up contesting the Division One final at Croke Park on Sunday.
And there is no fluke about the all-Western showdown either as Galway and Mayo have been the country’s two most consistent top-tier footballing forces this spring. The greater hype has been about Mayo, especially with a new manager Kevin McStay in tow, but the Tribesmen’s form has been just as compelling.
Game management, especially when clinging onto leads down the home stretch, has been an issue for Galway over the past couple of years. Even in that game in Castlebar a couple of months ago, Padraic Joyce’s team let a winning hand slip when carelessly giving away possession. A subsequent loss at home to Roscommon had some natives wondering if the great progress of 2022 had suddenly stalled.
Since then, however, Galway have been holding their nerve in tight matches, notably the last two, away to Armagh and against Kerry at Pearse Stadium last Sunday. Their players may have learned the hard way, but Seán Kelly and company no longer appeared flustered or prone to unforced errors when in sight of the winning post.
Beating Kerry at any time is a good day’s work, especially in a game when you lead from the off but are never so far ahead as to be entirely comfortable. Three times in the second-half, the All-Ireland champions cut the margin to a solitary point, but on each occasion the home team came up with the answers.
Given their extraordinary exploits in last year’s All-Ireland final, you would have struggled to find a bookmaker pre-match who would have laid long odds on both Shane Walsh and David Clifford failing to raise a flag from play between them. Clifford, in particular, was out of sorts, spurning chances and giving the ball away more than once. He looked battle-weary.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Inside Track with John McIntyre
MAYO are already there: and the odds favour Galway joining their great Connacht foes in the National League Final at Croke Park on Sunday week. That’s the exciting scenario after the penultimate round of Division One fixtures over the weekend. It would also represent only the second time the counties have clashed in Gaelic football’s spring showpiece.
Given that the Tribesmen only managed a solitary win from their opening four league games – a situation which sparked loose talk about the threat of relegation – to now stand on the brink of reaching the league decider is a noteworthy turnaround following victories over Monaghan and Armagh.
It leaves Galway in control of their own destiny. A win or a draw in their final group game against Kerry at Pearse Stadium on Sunday will see them through to the decider and given what’s at stake, it should result in a bumper crowd gathering in Salthill for a repeat of last year’s All-Ireland Final. A victory for Jack O’Connor’s team might be enough to see them through, although both Roscommon and Tyrone remain in the mix.
Though some observers are already doubting the benefits of a potential league final between Galway and Mayo in such close proximity to the Connacht championship, I have no truck with such reservations. For starters, this is the GAA’s second most prestigious competition and given that Galway have only won four league titles in the county’s history, why wouldn’t they target a massive early-season boost.
Mind you, at half-time against Armagh in the Athletic Grounds on Sunday, it appeared the home team were going to take some catching after building up a four-point lead in a low-scoring and defensive orientated encounter. They were the beneficiaries of a fortunate goal from their roving custodian Ethan Raftery, but there was more than a suspicion of square ball in Connor Gleeson’s crowded goalmouth.
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
THE Galway hurlers or team management would hardly have imagined a few weeks ago that they would be out of contention for a place in the semi-finals of the National League after just three rounds of the competition – and two of those matches going ahead at Pearse Stadium.
With a month’s break between the ending of the league group stages and the opening round of the Leinster championship against struggling Wexford, it’s not an ideal scenario for the Tribesmen, especially as Henry Shefflin, Kevin Lally and Damien Joyce have still some way to go in reaching a settled team.
It was no great surprise that Galway came up short for the second game running in Salthill on Sunday. Hosting the All-Ireland champions Limerick, the men in maroon didn’t have as many regulars on duty as the Shannonsiders, who were still missing a quartet of influential performers in Hurler of the Year Diarmuid Byrnes, Gearóid Hegarty, Declan Hannon and the currently out of favour Aaron Gillane.
With Tom Monaghan bouncing back to form, Galway were committed before a bumper crowd of over 12,200, but you rarely got the impression that they would end up carrying the day. Limerick always looked comfortable and, significantly, were able to lift the tempo and hit the final three points of the match when Galway were threatening a successful comeback.
There were new roles for TJ Brennan and Tiernan Killeen in as reshaped defence, while Cianan Fahy, Dónal O’Shea, Kevin Cooney and Martin McManus were given the opportunity of making an impression further up the field. But without Daithí Burke, Cathal Mannion, who will miss the rest of the campaign due to a hamstring injury Ronan Glennon, David Burke and Fintan Burke, together with Conor Whelan, Brian Concannon and Darren Morrissey only being introduced as substitutes, it was always going to be a big ask for Galway to stay in the league hunt.
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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