Pat Lam picked three different teams for Friday night’s game against Ulster. Thankfully, for him, the third version of his Connacht team did the job.
Ahead of their team announcements of Thursday afternoon, Connacht and Ulster both issued medical updates. The westerners were missing 15 of their senior squad through injury. Ulster had 19 men out.
34 senior professional rugby players up on blocks.
Has the game always been this punishing or are we just taking these bumps, bruises, lacerations, concussions, tears (etc, etc.) more seriously?
Lam has spoken about instilling a culture in which every player takes on added responsibility and is encouraged by back himself to be the difference. It occasionally looks scatter-gun from the champions – knock ons, passes skidding off the grass – but when it clicks, it clicks.
Defending a five-point lead with just three minutes to play, Connacht fullback Tiernan O’Halloran decided to loop a 25-yard pass to the left wing that cut out five teammates but hung dangerously in the air before finding Cian Kelleher. A journalist two seats up caught my eye.
“Only Connacht would try something like that!” he exclaimed.
Following Connacht’s 30-25 win over Ulster, Lam revealed just how disrupted his team’s preparations were by injuries.
“I knew we were going to get a good game when I saw what the weather would be like. I said to the boys, ‘Let’s go and play’…
“It was such a horrendous week, in terms of disruptions. We had some guys in Ireland camp but we named the team on Monday. That team completely changed. We had training on Wednesday but we had to put that back until the evening, when me and John Muldoon came from [the Champions Cup launch in] Dublin.
“More guys dropped out on Wednesday and more dropped out during the captain’s run, on Friday.”
Lam was forced to bring Ultan Dillane into his second row after Quinn Roux dropped out with injury. Caolin Blade stepped in for the dinged up Kieran Marmion and Craig Ronaldson was pulled from Galwegians club duty, with Galwegians, to start at 12 when Peter Robb went down.
“For Craig to play 80 minutes after being out such a long time was great… It was all last minute dot-com,” Lam remarked.
Les Kiss expressed his frustrations with how injuries have halted his team’s momentum after they had won their opening four fixtures of the season. He now looks set to be without Louis Ludik for next weekend’s Champions Cup game with Bordeaux while Darren Cave is a fresh doubt. Kiss said:
“It is another lesson in terms of understanding that when you are building a squad and are putting it together, the perception in certain areas is that you have enough and you should get them elsewhere. That is ridiculous, in this day and age.”
This day and age appears to be one where professional rugby squads need four bodies to cover every one position.
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