No regrets as Connacht bow out in style

All good things come to an end. Still, it was great fun while it lasted, and if this magnificent odyssey had to end somewhere, sometime, then it was good that it finished in the Philippe Sella Stadium on Saturday night and in some style. Make no mistake, Agen are a class act, but Connacht left their mark. As the song goes, kind of, Connacht ne regrette rien. It seems safe to say that Abdelatif Benazzi ("Connacht, where's that?") might have a better idea where Connacht is now. For, by the end of the night, Connacht had earned respect. The 7,000 home crowd were a barometer of that.

Their trademark try from a 13-man line-out, which put Agen behind for the first time in seven Conference matches, and the ensuing cheers from the noisy knot of Connacht supporters, merely earned derisory whistling and jeering. But just when it seemed Connacht might be steam-rolled into another French 50-pointer, they went out with a far bigger bang than Harlequins and Gloucester.

Cue to another trademark try: Eric Elwood's beautifully disguised one-handed reverse pass behind his back to substitute leftwinger Russell Southam carved Agen open like the proverbial knife through butter. The running off the ball had been perfectly timed.

High fives all round, while appreciative applause broke out from the initially dismissive crowd. That sounded good.

It sounded even better when Conor McGuinness broke blind from a scrum on half-way with what is called a "scoop ball": Barry Gavin left a quick scrum feed behind his foot for the scrumhalf to pick up left-handed going left to right. Showing blistering pace for the fourth or fifth time in the game, McGuinness burned Philippe Benetton on the outside, left Benazzi in his wake, feinted inside out-half Guillame Bouic and then delightfully curved inside full-back Vincent Thomas for a stunning, 50-minute solo try.

It told you something about this team. When it was all over, they linked in a circle inside the visitor's dressing-room and for one last time unleashed their anthem, Red is the Rose. "Let them hear it," beseeched Elwood, "open the door."

"They're a great bunch of lads. It's a pity we won't be meeting up again 'till next June or July," lamented Graham Heaslip on behalf of them all, and wondering aloud about a six-series interpro. "Imagine Thomond Park if we had to go there now, or the Sportsground for Leinster?"

Heaslip also made another salient point vis-a-vis the outstanding McGuinness, whose near flawless tackling, running and kicking brooked no argument about who should be wearing the Irish number nine jersey next week. He's the man.

"He just burned one of the best back-rows around. That's the calibre he should be playing against every week."

Now that it's all over, good memories and mementos remain. Marc Dal Maso, fittingly, had started the exchange of shirts when he came into the Connacht dressing-room in search of Billy Mulcahy. The bull-like hooker had been the bulwark of Agen's unrelenting, pounding, close-in driving forward play, and probably made more yardage than even Benazzi. The Moroccan-born man mountain directed the traffic, was forever in Tony Spreadbury's ear and never joined a ruck - though he set up a hat-load of them, usually over the Connacht gain line.

Almost exclusively, Agen attacked those inside corridors, but they did so with such varied angles of running - out-half Guillame Bouic was also a running threat - that Connacht were often wrong-footed as well as punched open.

Which made their close-in defence quite awesome. Junior Charlie, Barry Gavin and the gutsy McGuinness - ne'er a thought about his debut next week, which is probably the best way of avoiding injury - made huge tackle counts. But no one let the side down.

The scrum was sometimes in trouble, and Bouic's superior restarts gave Agen another key edge, but Connacht won all bar two of their well-drilled lineouts, driving Agen back in the process, and pinched four off Dal Maso's delivery.

Connacht actually silenced the crowd for much of the second quarter after the home side's bullying start left the impression that Connacht were going to need baseball bats.

Playing intelligent, alert rugby, they irreverently took the game to Agen. Nicky Barry poached a neat intercept, the hits went in, and all the backs - while not always moving like a well-oiled machine - willingly kept the ball alive by switching play across field. As usual, they kicked for position expertly, rarely conceding the throw.

A couple of moments stood out. After Mark McConnell's hit on Cedric Heymans, Mulcahy's well-placed, 40-metre kick and Barry's follow-up earned the throw; Elwood's strength in the tackle and ball retention then yielding the penalty for a 10-6 lead.

The hits kept going in, yielding a turnover on the Connacht 22 which the ever-improving Ruane (a fourth division player until this campaign) maximised by running onto Elwood's shoulder, breaking out and kicking deep.

Connacht were on top, and an excellent pass in the tackle by Elwood put Mervyn Murphy through on Thomas under the posts, but he opted for a long, loose pass to ground rather than go for the line. He was still ruing it in the Toulouse departure lounge a day later.

As it was, instead of a 17-6 interval lead, Connacht went in 1310 adrift after a 50-metre drive over six rucks saw Dal Maso make his third charge of the move to score by the posts. Agen had their tails up, and the die was pretty much cast, though Connacht bravely hauled back last season's French championship semi-finalists.

It was an emotional finale. Assistant coach Michael Cosgrave had a tear in his eye, and their once emotionless New Zealand coach Warren Gatland proudly said: "I was delighted with the performance, especially in the first-half when we really stuck at it. Just physical strength and power was the telling difference."

Scoring sequence: 3 mins: Bouic penalty 30; 7: Bouic penalty 6-0; 17: Maher try, Elwood conversion 6-7; 31: Elwood penalty 6-10; 40: Dal Maso try, Bouic conversion 13-10; 44: Elwood penalty 13-13; 48: Loubere try, Bouic conversion 20-13; 60: Benazzi try, Bouic conversion 25-13; 68: Bouic penalty 28-13; 70: Loubere try, 33-13; 74: Benazzi try, Bouic conversion 40-13; 77: Southam try, Elwood conversion 40-20; 79: McGuinness try, Elwood conversion 40-27.

Agen: V Thomas; L Loubere, J-C Cistaq, C Heymans, S Gayri; G Bouic, G Sudre; J-J Crenca, M Dal Maso, P Piacentini, P Fonti, C Porcu, P Benetton, A Benazzi, H Lefevre. Replacements: F Bourdeilh for Lefevre (55 mins), E Rodriguez for Crenca (61 mins).

Connacht: W Ruane; N Barry, P Duignan, M Murphy, N Carolan; E Elwood, C McGuinness; J Maher, B Mulcahy, M Finlay, G Heaslip (capt), M McConnell, S McEntee, B Gavin, J Charlie. Replacements: R Southam for Carolan (64 mins), R Rogers for McEntee (77 mins).

Referee: T Spreadbury (England).