Gerry Thornley: Connacht’s response to drubbing will be key

Uneasy lies the crown. This was such a bad opening night in defence of the title Connacht claimed so memorably last May that it was almost too bad to be true. They’ll hardly play this badly again.

That this defeat came at the Sportsground where they had won 13 of their 14 competitive fixtures last season only made their embarrassment more acute.

To put it further into context, it was their heaviest defeat since Ulster beat them 58-12 toward the end of Pat Lam’s first season, 2013-14, and Connacht’s heaviest at home since Pontypridd beat them 40-0 in October 2003.

Lam had forewarned that his squad were a little under-cooked from a nine-week pre-season delayed by last season’s successful run to the final, all the more so after Bristol pulled out of a warm-up game in Galway. This left them with only one pre-season match, per se, as well as training matches against Clontarf and Sale.

Locked and

loaded The net

impact was that Connacht played like a side in pre-season whereas the Warriors, wound up by the memory of their back-to-back defeats at the same ground which ended their title defence last season, were locked and fully loaded, and sharper physically.

Inestimably more aggressive in defence than a comparatively passive home side and more effective at the breakdown, Glasgow were also more accurate and clinical with the ball. Even so, no one could have foreseen the way Connacht’s performance collapsed after a bright enough opening 35 minutes.

This wake-up call will serve as their final warm-up game and warning shot.

“We knew one game last year wasn’t going to win us the championship and one game this year isn’t going to lose it,” said Lam. “We don’t become a bad team overnight, but it does highlight that if you’re not quite on our game and you’re playing a quality side like Glasgow then you’ll come undone.

“The way we break the game down and the way we go through it, I’m excited by the learnings that we’re going to get out of this and it’s the sort of learnings that we never really had in pre-season.

“We were thumped by Grenoble last year and you get those opportunities [to learn]. Now we’ve got it, and it’s up to us to make the most of it.

Disappointed

“We can’t just turn around and think it’s going to happen, we’ve to make sure we do the work tonight, tomorrow, Monday and come back. We’re disappointed for our fans, it was a great turnout.”

Connacht were reasonably good in the first-half when, true to type, they refused to kick into the teeth of a strong wind which blew down the pitch from the Bohermore end of the ground.

Glasgow flirted continuously and successfully with the offside law as they pushed up aggressively, but Connacht often outsmarted them with the swiftness of their handling or by passing out the back for a deeper player to locate the runners out wide.

Break clear

They ought to have drawn level when Bundee Aki stepped

Alex Dunbar

to break clear only to take Stuart Hogg’s tackle when he had

Cian Kelleher

and

Niyi Adeolokun

in support.

That would have made it 5-5, and after typically strong carries up the middle by Aki and good hands by Denis Buckley, Caolin Blade, Finlay Bealham and Eoin Griffin, Adeolokun finish well out wide to make it 8-5 almost 35 minutes in.

Even then, when the Connacht's defence again became a little too narrow as Tommy Seymour finished a second time (Adeolokun and Kelleher were culpable the first time, Matt Healy the latter) at 15-8 with the wind in their backs Connacht were very much in the game.

However, when Glasgow's eye-catching Italian debutant Leonardo Sarto again made an incision up the middle, and Hogg scored off an ensuing five-metre scrum, Connacht's challenge simply collapsed.

Catch-up

Obliged to play catch-up with a rejigged team and amid more reshuffling off the bench, the more Connacht tried to force things the worse they became.

They could scarcely hold on to the ball, and the handling errors were compounded by missed tackles – 33 in all.

There was an inevitability about the ensuing tries by Tim Swinson, Sila Puafisi and Sean Lamont, and by the end the wonder was that the defeat was not even bigger.

Connacht’s response against the Ospreys, who beat Zebre 59-5 on Friday, at the Sportsground will be fascinating. As Lam pointed out, Connacht responded to a 43-10 away defeat to Edinburgh in his first season by beating Toulouse away a week later.

There is plenty to fix again, but it is fixable, albeit they only have a week to do so.

“I think the good thing is that last year is now well and truly over,” said Lam.

“As I said to the boys, that’s a great example that we’re not quite right. Everyone is hungry to beat us. You saw the hunger of Glasgow. That hunger comes on the back of a little bit of pain from last season. We’ve got a bit of pain now, and I’m pretty sure our hunger will be improved next week.”

It will need to be.