Were we cross on 33 minutes in the Sportsground on Sunday evening when a Leinster player touched the ball before it travelled over his own goal line (Bohermore end) and another Leinster player touched it before it travelled over the deadball line. We waited in expectation for the 5 metre scrum. All we got was a 22 drop out. We're sure, we watched it from behind the dead ball line. An IRFU ref favouring Leinster, we braced ourselves. Déjá vu! Were we cross! Were we what!

Still, we felt good again at halftime with the score 9/9 and Connacht would play into the College Road end in the second half. We felt good even if the impressive Mike McCarthy had gone to the bin for the first time.

We felt good again on 43.50 minutes (we just love the new clocks) when the only try of the game was scored by Connacht. Our boy Johnny (who had a huge game @ no. 7) started it deep inside his own half, Frank Murphy, Gavin Duffy and Fionn Carr handled. On the recycle it travelled from right to left and Murphy again, Ian Keatley and then Sean Cronin offloaded to Mike McCarthy to touch down under the posts. As can happen when they, who are not meant to be beaten, get upset, there was a dustup! Oh dear! The new genius on the block Rocky Elsom of Leinster was sent to the bin but sadly so was our try scorer Mike McCarthy. Elsom returned after ten minutes but McCarthy didn't and we played nearly the whole second half and won with only fourteen men!

On 66 minutes Ian Keatley our outhalf put in a wonder tackle on the same Elsom as the new Leinster recruit thundered to the Connacht line, just superb. However on 76 minutes with a nightmare ending looming for Leinster, Felipe the doctor was about to fix things and restore the proper order. He dropped a beauty on 76.21 (that clock again) but it went inches wide on the right. Instead of fixing things for Leinster it gave a fair few of us heart attacks that we may never recover from.

Sporting Moment of the Week

Seldom do we see the Leinster backroom team trudge off the Sportsground dejected with their walkie talkies and clip boards and other paraphernalia. Seldom do we see the shocked look of defeat on the faces of Leinster players in the Sportsground. But we did on Sunday evening. And then we saw the bit of rugby culture that makes you feel good about the game. The Leinster captain Leo Cullen ashen faced and shocked in defeat, maybe embarrassed, stopped at the exit from the field on the far side and instructed his players to wait and clap the Connacht players through the tunnel of blue jerseys. Swifty orchestrated three cheers in response, we liked that too. Cullen's gesture was the sporting moment of the week.

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment