After the din had finally died down and the capacity 12,481 headed into the Galway (Ireland) rain, Connacht Rugby could reflect with pride on a truly momentous night.
‘THE IRISH TIMES’ stated that the atmosphere generated by a passionate home crowd in their shiny new stand and those around the ground, including a sizeable smattering of blue, contributed to a memorable occasion and game. Yet that only heightened Connacht’s bitter disappointment.
Connacht Rugby is one of the four professional provincial Men’s rugby teams from the island of Ireland based in Galway. Connacht competes in the United Rugby Championship (an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales) and the EPCR Challenge Cup (an annual, second-tier professional rugby union competition featuring clubs from Europe’s top leagues). The 12,500-capacity Dexcom Stadium serves as their home ground.
‘THE IRISH TIMES’ further stated that seeking to end a run of 12 defeats against Leinster Rugby and register a first interpro win in two seasons Connacht gave as good as they got in a nip-and-tuck first half.
After trading tries off early power plays, Sam Gilbert’s second penalty drew the sides level for the third time and the Westerners were roared through the Clan Stand for the break after three big defensive sets kept Leinster at bay.
Never has there been a bigger crowd at a rugby game in Galway and never has there been a more desperate desire for a win to decorate the occasion.
But the visitors treated the occasion and their opponents with the respect they deserved exemplified by the 22 tackles made by Mayo-born Caelan Doris on his unstinting 100th appearance for Leinster. Two tries in four minutes approaching the hour mark, the first by RG Snyman and the second a fine solo (albeit softly conceded) effort by Charlie Tector turned the game around before the Connacht-bound Ciarán Frawley sealed the bonus point to twist the knife.
Connacht head coach Stuart Lancaster could not conceal his disappointment at coming away with nothing from such a huge effort in showcasing the €50 million refurbishment of the Dexcom Stadium.
Said Lancaster, “The energy was huge and you can’t thank [the supporters] enough for turning out that way. That’s why it feels so gut-wrenching not to have actually delivered for the supporters, because we know how much it means to them. But they’ll stay behind us because they can see there’s a team growing and they know that we have a period of transition taking place. We’ve got some great Connacht stalwarts who are coming to the end of their careers and we’ve got some great young lads coming through.”
Added Lancaster, “So when you build a stadium, you’ve got to start at the bottom and build some strong foundations and I feel we’re building those, but it doesn’t lessen the pain of defeat because you want to win in the here and now and build for the future at the same time. I’m not interested in just building for the future.”
A seventh defeat in nine matches leaves Connacht 14th in the URC table.
In spite of the result, Lancaster said there are “huge positives” to take from the defeat.
Lancaster surmised, “I thought our ball carrying, our contact work, our defense was very good, obviously bar the lapses. I thought in the set-piece, we didn’t nail one or two lineouts. I thought the scrum was good bar one or two in the second half, but overall the shape and framework of what we were trying to do was strong throughout the game. I thought the emotional energy that the players brought was good, and lots of good individual performances within that. We have got good players to come back in the second half of the season as well, which makes a big difference. So, there’s lots of positives you can take but ultimately, we still lost and that’s the thing that probably is the overriding emotion at the moment.”
No Connacht player deserved a win more than Jansen, their leading ball carrier (15 for 45 metres) and tackler (20) who also made two turnovers in his tour de force.
Echoing Lancaster, Jansen said there were positives to take from how they stood up to Leinster – “When we’re good we’re really good. You can see when we are on top, we’re carrying, we’re getting fast balls around the corner, our defence is amazing. We just need to get better at those big moments. There are loads of positives but we are coming in every week with positives but we need to put a performance on because Stu has given us all the tools.”
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