Watching the pro 14 hour tonight, and there was some excellent analysis from Murray Kinsella on Jack's cameo the last day. Like a lot of us, he considers Jack to be the form out half in Ireland at the moment. I also noticed BT were in Galway during the week interviewing him, presumably for their coverage of the sale game on Friday. Jack's stock is certainly rising. Fingers crossed he stays fit and his good form continues.

Yes, that performance from Jack should have had Joe kicking himself after he persisted with Sexton for far too long against Wales.

Great game of rugby last night. The stepup in quality when Marmion and Carty came on was the difference (which is maybe a bit harsh on Godwin, who was ok, and Blade, who was my MOM up to that point).
Pity TOH went off as he was looking up for it. Thought Robb was very good again, a few mistakes but in a game when we lost far more collisions than we won he was consistently strong in defense and attack. Well worth another contract for me.
Very big win- knowing Cardiff had the BP in the bag by half time really cranked up the pressure against a good Treviso side.

Special mention for Jack though, what a cameo. Deserved MOM for that. He's got a serious swagger about him at the minute, which is more than being backed up by his performances.

Commentators said TOH was a HIA check and then he never came back but didn't get update on whether he had passed the test or not.

At one point I was quite worried as a Craggy podcasters have pointed out, connacht tend to lose the first game back from international break, so to get a bp at the end was great.

Credit to Treviso they were pretty good in parts and put in some wicked hits, I hope for their sake that they don't lose many of their non-italian players at the end of the season as it would damage their development.

Some match, and what a result against Benetton. BP keeps us in the running against Cardiff given their win against Scarlets.

Looked like there were a few side entries and high tackles that went unnoticed in the match (on both sides) and there was a few times that we were off our feet competing for ball.

Matt was all over the place, as was Tiernan (any idea why he was taken off? HIA?). Blades try was a thing of beauty, really showed them up.

Pace of the game improved immensely once JC and Marmion came on. Jack now highest points scorer for us, and well deserved.

Gonna be an interesting final few games.

{cmp_start idkey=9049[title=Connacht+v.+Benneton+Rugby][desc=]}...

You have to look at the Ulster team they faced that day. Same for their short win vs Edinburgh A in Italy
We're home. If we can't beat Treviso without 7 or 8 Italian internationals...

Fair point. Looks a stronger team than got the draw in Belfast.
I just can't seem to shake that ominous "ah sure we'll be grand" feeling ...

Not too excited by the Italian players being missing, this is mostly the team that went unbeaten (3 home wins and away draw with Ulster) during the 6 nations. 11 of the starting 15 started 3 or 4 of those games. The other lads are international returnees (Zanni, Benvenuti) the returning captain Sbargi and the hooker, who was out of favour the last few months but does have 10 starts this season.

Very few of their internationals released. I think Pasquali is the only one of the starters against France to make the 23. A few from the bench like ourselves.

Benetton Rugby:

15 Luca Sperandio, 14 Ratuva Tavuyara, 13 Tommaso Benvenuti, 12 Alberto Sgarbi (C), 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Ian McKinley (C), 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Toa Halafihi, 7 Giovanni Pettinelli, 6 Marco Lazzaroni, 5 Alessandro Zanni, 4 Irné Herbst, 3 Marco Riccioni, 2 Hame Faiva, 1 Nicola Quaglio.

A disposizione: 16 Tomas Baravalle, 17 Derrick Appiah, 18 Tiziano Pasquali, 19 Marco Barbini, 20 Robert Barbieri, 21 Giorgio Bronzini, 22 Antonio Rizzi, 23 Tommaso Iannone

benettonrugby.it/scelti-i-23-leoni-per-l...ani-contro-connacht/

creaven wrote: Is Boyle injured ?

Wasn't as of Tuesday: SOB, Ronaldson, Fitzgerald the Younger, Horwitz were the injuries mentioned by Friend.

Is Boyle injured ?

(15-9) Tiernan O’Halloran, Darragh Leader, Tom Farrell, Peter Robb, Matt Healy, Kyle Godwin, Caolin Blade, Denis Buckley, Shane Delahunt, Finlay Bealham, Ultan Dillane, James Cannon, Eoin McKeon, Colby Fainga’a, Jarrad Butler (Capt).
Replacements : Tom McCartney, Peter McCabe, Conor Carey, Gavin Thornbury, Eoghan Masterson, Kieran Marmion, Jack Carty, Stephen Fitzgerald.

I missed the update from yesterday: www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/pro14/car...acht-squad-1.3831792
Conor Fitz still injured and Horwitz having surgery, we could be short of tens for a while.

Jack & Kieran on the bench rather than starting. So looks like...

TOH, ?, Farrell, Robb, Healy, Godwin, Blade, Buckley, ?, Bealham, Dillane, Thornberry, McKeon/Boyle, Fainga'a, Butler.

Any of 3 could start hooker, same at wing (Niyi / Fitzgerald / Kelleher).