I have to say a huge thank you to all your fans in the ground, in the bars, shops and restaurants in fact all of the town we were welcomed. Without exception there wasn't a Gloucester fan that wasn't impressed by the hospitality and the sportsmanship that you guys showed.

I think the result was fair but could still have gone either way right up to the final whistle, don't beat yourselves up over it.

The atmosphere in the bar watching the Munster game afterwards was awesome, again full on knowledgeable and passionate.

A few of us went to Dublin to watch Leinster v Sarries....and in comparison it was like watching rugby with yer granny in the library.

Good luck to you all going forwards, a few of us are planning to come over to Galway for a random game next season so if you see some lively characters in red and white come and say hello......

But as I said thanks again for the hospitality and a great weekend,

Linley McKenzie sums it up very well www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/european-...spite-exit-1.3447265

Connacht "continue to play both sublime and ordinary rugby in equal measure."

Yup.

My gut feeling at the time was we made the wrong choice.
But our next line and scrum we lost both.
So we will never know, maybe we made the right choice.
Would we have scored a try or not?

I think the major problem we have all season the first receiver goes to ground to early and easily.
Our rucking is far too slow. Ball should be gone within 2 to 3 seconds we are closer to 5 I would say which lets the defence set.
(This is how to slow is down)

We have a fantastic back 3. We need to figure out a way to give them space.
They looked so dangerous on Saturday.

I'm really looking forward to next season
With copeland and McKeon strength they will not be taking down easily.
If We could clean the ruck quickly you will see a big difference

quote="columoc" post=60702]

ThisYearWillBeDifferent wrote: Right decision I think.
We could have gotten the try, or we could have spent 5 minutes in the corner and got nothing.
Whereas this decision got us within 2 points with 8.5 minutes left and 5.5 minutes on the Gloucester sin-bin.

It got us to 9, the gap was 12 at the time. It still meant we needed two scores, the Healey try came after. Few teams would have taken our option in the same situation, we should have gone for it.[/quote]

ThisYearWillBeDifferent wrote: Right decision I think.
We could have gotten the try, or we could have spent 5 minutes in the corner and got nothing.
Whereas this decision got us within 2 points with 8.5 minutes left and 5.5 minutes on the Gloucester sin-bin.

It got us to 9, the gap was 12 at the time. It still meant we needed two scores, the Healey try came after. Few teams would have taken our option in the same situation, we should have gone for it.

I agree. That Niyi break with the clock in the red could have generated a wining score for us. Absolutely the right decision imho.

Right decision I think.
We could have gotten the try, or we could have spent 5 minutes in the corner and got nothing.
Whereas this decision got us within 2 points with 8.5 minutes left and 5.5 minutes on the Gloucester sin-bin.

wp_rathead wrote: What was with the decision to go for 3 when we were 12 down with 12 mins to go? We still needed 2 scores after that penalty
I'm usually a "take your point's" person but our scrum was going well, our lineout was going well, and they'd their openside in the bin..
Thought Niyi and McKeon were both fantastic

Felt a bit like a decision Ireland would have made during the six nations - take the 3 points and the restart with the confidence that they can get another 5/7 off the restart ball as well. Unfortunately Connacht aren't at that cut throat level.

As a relative neutral with soft spots for both teams I thought you guys did well, ultimately Glaws' desire and physicality won through. The biggest difference between the two sides was probably not in skills but power - Glaws really did a number on you smashing defenders backwards in contact which wasn't replicated on the whole, maybe a bit of a step up in intensity? I very much disagree about them being an average side, only until fairly recently were they beaten at home AFAIK as it's their inconsistent away form which has cost them more than anything and under Ackerman improvements are happening continuously.

Should be proud of your boys, it was the game of the weekend and I'm sure lessons would have been taken from this defeat so you can hopefully improve moving forward. The clan were noisy and came over well on TV too, plus was nice to see a few familiar faces from our trip last year. Looking forward to another pre-season fixture with Bris.

Betty Swallocks wrote: Truly depressing to lose to a very average Glos side. No one here is mentioning the elephant in the room which is the fact that the current coaching ticket just isn't good enough. Do we really want to give Kene another year at the helm? There is no discernible pattern in our play and players such as TOH, Buckley, McCartney, and Dillane have regressed at a rate of knots this season. It's not two wasted seasons since the glory year of 15/16. Do we really want to take the chance of having a third shite season next year, or do we want to bring in a hungry young coach who can make the best of a half-decent bunch of players?

Niyi, Healy, Marmion, Belham, Thornbury, and McKeon were at the standard today. Butler had a poor game and the decline in Tom McCartney's game has been savage this season.

Finally: KK must have seen when he arrived that we didn't have a 10 worthy of the name. Why didn't we look to bring in an emergency 10? What specialist kicking coaching has Carty received this season? Why has the lack of a reliable 10 been allowed to continue for two full seasons without a fix? Do we think the same kind of shite would be tolerated at any if the other three provinces.

I thought TOH was very good yesterday actually, in both defence and attack. As for that ridiculous bit of brilliance in injury time to release Niyi and set up our last attack- that was sheer class.

What was with the decision to go for 3 when we were 12 down with 12 mins to go? We still needed 2 scores after that penalty
I'm usually a "take your point's" person but our scrum was going well, our lineout was going well, and they'd their openside in the bin..
Thought Niyi and McKeon were both fantastic

Betty Swallocks wrote: Truly depressing to lose to a very average Glos side. No one here is mentioning the elephant in the room which is the fact that the current coaching ticket just isn't good enough. Do we really want to give Keane another year at the helm? There is no discernible pattern in our play and players such as TOH, Buckley, McCartney, and Dillane have regressed at a rate of knots this season. It's not two wasted seasons since the glory year of 15/16. Do we really want to take the chance of having a third shite season next year, or do we want to bring in a hungry young coach who can make the best of a half-decent bunch of players?

Some of this is awful knee jerk stuff. We went backwards in the first year under Lam but obviously led to much better in the long term. All the players have spoken extremely highly of Keane and he deserves to at least have the second year of his contract.

Niyi, Healy, Marmion, Belham, Thornbury, and McKeon were at the standard today. Butler had a poor game and the decline in Tom McCartney's game has been savage this season.

Finally: KK must have seen when he arrived that we didn't have a 10 worthy of the name. Why didn't we look to bring in an emergency 10? What specialist kicking coaching has Carty received this season? Why has the lack of a reliable 10 been allowed to continue for two full seasons without a fix? Do we think the same kind of shite would be tolerated at any if the other three provinces.

Carty has a dedicated kicking coach (Elwood) and has improved exponentially this season - top points scorer in challenge cup up to now, not impossible that that remains the case even with other kickers reaching the final. I don't think his kicking yesterday was good, particularly the one that went past the corner flag, but its untrue to say he's not improved.

Additionally, considering the troubles Ulster have had trying to get a 10 for the year while having more notice than Keane (who would only have had the chance to find out in preseason/early games if he liked Carty or not), an emergency 10 would probably have ended up being a random AIL or semi-pro from England - difficult to see this imaginary player outscoring Carty and even if they did how much of the rest of their game would be up to scratch. Keane has now signed an oh from Australia - I don't know how good he is but willing to believe he's better than an emergency 10.

Finally, separate point but even though I'm not Carty's biggest fan I do think the way he has been treated in the past by Lam may have slowed his progress - he was a poor kicker for a long time granted but I'm not sure there was a dedicated coach before this year, and if there was they weren't working so an additional voice was needed. Then Lam frequently took kicking off him in favour of Leader, Ronaldson or Cooney, which further engrained in Carty that he wasn't good enough. 10s generally don't like that responsibility being taken off them, and then if the other kicker was off the field he would invariably have to take on the duties again, but at a higher pressure and without any previous kicks in the game - I don't think that's good for a player who needs rhythm and practice.

A coach in their first year, disappointing league performance save for a scalp inter interpros, a poor European result save for one or two big games in the pools? #Lamout

I think carty had a fine game from play actually. Kicking percentages weren't there but Gloucester were in the same league as us so didn't open up too much of a differential.

Would've liked to see him finish the game and have Craig at centre, backs seemed to be getting better ball with JC on. Planned substitutions being somewhat blindly followed rather than going with rhe flow of the game?

Some very well worked tries. Thought niyi was itching to get into 5th gear. Huge tackles from him too.

Lineout functioned well. Scrum was ok, but seemed to take a dip after the subs.

Cons (which I'm just not going to dwell on) defence, handling errors.

Just an awful way to end a season.

We didn’t do enough to win the match. Too many errors, missed tackles etc. Carty had a shocker, he can’t tackle anymore, thought Quinn roux was poor, he was at fault for their 3rd try but Cartys tackle after that was weak, I think dillane shud have started and Ronaldson. Question marks about kk now,

Truly depressing to lose to a very average Glos side. No one here is mentioning the elephant in the room which is the fact that the current coaching ticket just isn't good enough. Do we really want to give Kene another year at the helm? There is no discernible pattern in our play and players such as TOH, Buckley, McCartney, and Dillane have regressed at a rate of knots this season. It's not two wasted seasons since the glory year of 15/16. Do we really want to take the chance of having a third shite season next year, or do we want to bring in a hungry young coach who can make the best of a half-decent bunch of players?

Niyi, Healy, Marmion, Belham, Thornbury, and McKeon were at the standard today. Butler had a poor game and the decline in Tom McCartney's game has been savage this season.

Finally: KK must have seen when he arrived that we didn't have a 10 worthy of the name. Why didn't we look to bring in an emergency 10? What specialist kicking coaching has Carty received this season? Why has the lack of a reliable 10 been allowed to continue for two full seasons without a fix? Do we think the same kind of shite would be tolerated at any if the other three provinces.

Have to agree with an earlier post that this performance was typical of the whole season.
Thought along with our now usual high error count, we leaked penalties at an alarming rate.
Gloucester in my opinion were cynical and a lot of their tackling was marginally high or illegal - that said they were better than us and deserved the win. They seemed to make easy yards up the middle and had a cutting edge we lacked at times.
Thought Nyi had a good game his work and tacking and with his try did really well.
Unbelievable that Sean O' Brien was not involved in the squad, can't believe how there wasn't more from us supporters about this, someone should be answerable - this is a professional football team in what was the most important game of the season!
I know we will always be battling, but sad to see us slipping back so badly since 2016 - have a fairly solid squad