Welcome to Connacht, now get your finger out.
The Guinness PRO12 champions have been through the wringer in recent weeks but they hope, with last week’s win over Edinburgh, that they are coming out the other side.
The westerners have been beset by injuries. Allied to the departures of Aly Muldowney, Robbie Henshaw, George Naoupu and AJ MacGinty and a heap of new arrivals, Connacht are finding their feet all over again.
With league-leading Ulster up next [on Friday from 7:35pm] and two Champions Cup fixtures, there is practically no time to ease into it. Lam is all too aware of it. That is why the new recruits get a short, sharp taste of reality when they arrive at The Sportsground. Lam says:
“It’s not about season to season. My mindset is day to day. The process of what we go through, how guys can get better and more. Things happen – you get injuries, guys leave, you get guys in.
“I’ll give you an example of saying ‘we’ve got to get this guy up to speed’. James Cannon arrived [from Wasps] and I announced him to the team.
“I said, ‘No disrespect to James but James is now the weakest link in our team’.
“Why? Because James doesn’t know the players, he doesn’t know the game-plan. So it’s not just [up to] James, accelerate it fellas. Start to get to know him, get him out to lunch, help him with the game-plan.
“Because he can go out there and it doesn’t matter how good a player he is. He’s got to know how we work.”
While Lam mentions Cannon as a guy needing to get up to speed, he has nothing but praise for a man in the Connacht set-up for the past couple of months – Lewis Stevenson. Whether it is Cannon or the former Ulster and Exeter Chiefs lock that steps up for the badly missed Muldowney.
Now that Connacht are up and ticking over the win column, Lam is eager to test his side against an Ulster side “humming” after five straight wins. Toulouse and Zebre are next.
Lam had the crowd eating out of his hands as he answered questions at Wednesday’s Champions Cup launch at the Dublin Convention Centre. Nothing, he says, gave him more pride than seeing his captain John Muldoon in the high stool reserved for the league champions. He said:
“In my first year at Connacht, I could hear all the words – ‘Ah, they only got in there because of Leinster’. I was only a newcomer to it but to sit here, three seasons later, and see John sitting in the No.1 slot… No-one can question why we are here.”
Ulster will ask the questions this Friday and Lam will expect his men, new or old, to have the answers.
The GAA Hour pays tribute to the unbeatable Dubs and ask where did it all go wrong for Mayo in the All-Ireland final replay. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.
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