Coannacht come within a whisker, but still do themselves justice!

 

 Matt Healy

There was a few fantastic close matches this weekend, and Grenoble v Connacht was right up there. Connacht have a fantastic team, playing for each other, no big stars (at the moment) but up against a physically larger, bigger budget team, they played with a high tempo, trying to run them off the pitch. And Grenoble weren’t shy of running the ball themselves, so it was end to end stuff, for 80 minutes! Unfortunately, with their fourth choice fly half starting, what was missing was a bit of judgement –sometimes you just have to kick for touch chase it up well instead of incessantly running the ball. The match however, was a perfect advert for Matt Healy, who has the uncanny knack of picking a gap, injecting some deadly pace, and scoring himself or drawing the cover and letting someone else score the try.

I hope that someone’s looking after the Connacht contracts otherwise there’s going to be stream of players leaving after a performance like that on such a big stage. Connacht absolutely did themselves justice out in Grenoble, and Bernard Jackman was the first to hail their efforts. They still have plenty to play for this season, and next season with their Champions place.

Grenoble 33 - 32 Connacht