2nd half was very hard to watch, reminded me of some of our poorer away performances under Bradley. No shape, poor basic errors and decision-making. That drop-goal was a real sickener. Hopefully we learn plenty of lessons from this and move on positively.

There's no transfer window as such. Currie Cup and ITM Cup finishes soon enough so that's why teams tend to snap up the odd player after that. Players playing in Europe would be contracted til June. All our NIQ spots are taken so that would stop us for moving for someone down south

I don't know if there is a cut off point, George played his first game for us at Christmas.

when is the closing date to bring new players in? When george came here first afew games was already played? Was on a bus from waterford last night and a new zealander looking guy, small but strong and big, very hairy arm's. I wonder is he a new player, dont get to excited tho

We (allegedly) would have had the cash for Benson Stanley. The Mazda cash would have been quite a shot in the arm for us.

And he was (allegedly) told not to join by a player from Leinster who may or may not play at fullback and is of Kiwi origin.

No money.

We spent all our money on macca, George and keeping o halloran and griffin.

After that we were bottom feeding looking for bargain basement deals.

O'Halloran is on a development contract afaik
Griffin is not on big money

I don't think we were permitted to spend the season ticket money so that would have left us short to invest in some areas. The cash was there for Stanley I think, but because he decided not to come we had to get somone and we got Fa'afili for alot cheaper for a year, and hopefully targetting a top notch 12 for next year.

One problem with our recruitment I think is that we gave alot of 2 year deals. All our fly halves are on 2 year contracts which means we probably won't be able to invest in a 10 next year with 3 already on our books. I'd question the logic in giving TJ Anderson a 2 year deal when we have lots of back row talent coming through the ranks. Reyneke is on a 2 year deal as well

We (allegedly) would have had the cash for Benson Stanley. The Mazda cash would have been quite a shot in the arm for us.

No money.

We spent all our money on macca, George and keeping o halloran and griffin.

After that we were bottom feeding looking for bargain basement deals.

Like everyone else Eric is going to make mistakes. But after watching 7 years of Bradley's mistakes I'm not going to complain (too much, I will complain a bit) about giving away soft results such as last weeks.

Clover, you've got some good points, but I don't think everything is as bleak as you've made out. We have improved, maybe not to the extent you're happy with, but improvement is there. How many 60+ point losses have we posted under Elwood? We're competitive in 100% of our games now, we're giving ourselves chances to win that in previous years didn't even exist. A loss is a loss is a loss, except when it's a bonus point loss and we improved on that massively over the last 18 months.  The next step in our development is to turn the tight losses into wins, and the games against Treviso and Scarlets were just that. We gave Bradley 7 years, I think we can afford to give Eric more than one and a bit seasons.

And look at everything off the pitch. We have a new stand, a major sponsorship deal, a much more in-your-face attitude coming from all quarters of the branch. I could be wrong, but I firmly believe Brads was holding us back from that and Eric is really pushing it forward.

As for the players brought in, he can only sign players who want to sign for us. It's his job to make us more appealing, and he's on the righ track I think. You mentioned how many signings were ones for the future, but we already had those in Fanning and Monahan, for example, and Eric decided that Jarvis and Loxton were better for us in the long run. He's got a bit of a ruthless streak when he wants.

In some ways I agree with Clan Clover about Elwood.

The role of the head coach/director of rugby has changed somewhat over the last few years. It's no longer a solo thing, it's about assembling the best people around you to do the different jobs. We have a gem in Mike Forshaw as defence coach. The jury is still out over the backs coach who needs time to bed in. Melrose was a failure in my eyes. McFarland is a good forwards coach, although it remains to be seen can he make scrummagers out of Ah You and Rogers. Then again, are they capable of becoming good scrummagers?  Silk purse, sows ear etc. McPhilips I'm not so sure about. I feel we need someone with a bit more experience an nous in this area.

The one area of expertise Eric should be able to bring to us on the coaching front is at 10. He signed O'Connor which I was very surprised about. He's just not good enough full stop. Jarvis can be one for the future. We needed an established 10 and we didn't sign one, Nikora has shown glimpses but thats all. None of them can put there hand up and say they're going to take the reigns. The signings over all don't look great. George is a great signing, but there was no risk there. Other than that I think    McCrea and possibly Vainikolo could be good signings. Reyneke is not a patch on Cronin. We signed 2 SH's, O'Donoghue and Moore who are average, and don't look like a step up on Frank which we needed. Fa'afili looks ok going forward but his defence is poor. McComish was a better player than Anderson. Grace could be good but did we really need a 7? Maguire, Loxton and Jarvis are all young and unproven, which is exactly the opposite of what we need.

Really good th prop and place kicker are the absolute minimum requirement to be competitive at pro 12 level and we lack both.

Hard to be overly critical of the
Management when the players
Identified turn us down.

I have to agree with Sheepsean, during last season on our travels we would kick up to 70% of our possesion on first or second pass, so in other words we would win the ball via turnover from line out or open play and we would kick it aimlessly up in the air via box kick or up and under from the first or second pass, of that 70% I can only remember two instances were we regained the ball.

Saturdays defeat, highlights a number of things from the coaching side, we need change or a reshuffle, I know you are all saying that is premature etc etc. Listen as assistant coach to Brads, Elwood was an abject failure, he got the main job when all around in rugby circles were saying no way so cronyisn is as we know alive and well in Irish rugby circles. But the lucky stroke for us, we got a defence coach who has by and large has been an outstanding success, we got a backs coach who on home games actually thought the backs how to work with the forwards something we lacked for the seven previous years. Our backs coach left us, lucky we got another one, our recruitment over the summer was in a word dismal, not dismissing the new players but I think only 2 or three actually bring experience to team the others ones are certainly for the future, but we only have three years.

The support from the IRFU that we have been begging for is there, equal status with the other three but again we have only three years to prove we are capable, the crowds are coming. Pulling players off a field for no reason to disrupt a team is amateurvile, turning a winning propostion into a disaster is Amateurvile.
We have another old boy doing the Video work, another great servant but time and time again we fall foul of the refs and its not like we don't know the laws, so what is Connor working on.

A job can be done with these players but a bit of common sense is needed, tactics good tactics are needed and good leadership on the field. The backs coach, the forwards coach and the defence coach can do the job, if they are left to it, so someone let them get on with it.  Now before the Elwood supporters round on me, what I have mentioned was mentioned on the terraces many times last season, he has been an outstanding servant and good player but from a coaching point of view I would question him. And if I hear one more time what a great season we had last season , I will explode, we effectively finished second last in the Magners you cannot count the two Italians in there first season, we got knocked out of the Amlin challange in the pool stages, the only success we had was no one really put up cricket scores against us in 2010, and that has to go down to the defence coach.

even allowing for the extra few days to get over Saturdays game.

























i'm still forking gutted












How the F**K did we manage to lose????????????????????????


and the drop goal at the end was the ultimate kick in the Boll*x













This defeat will really test all the players and management they must be sickened (well i hope they are)

Between this and the irish game ,it was not a good weekend .

- There seems to be a lot of positive remarks about the first half.Other than the 10 minutes where we got the 2 tries,not sure where its coming from.
-Ruined in the scrums.
-Ball turned over,not enough players at the breakdown/not aggressive enough.
-Backs couldn't go more than 2 phases without knocking on,not releasing,turning over ball.
-Main tactic in our own half was box kicking (reminds me of Chris Keane in the Bradley days) Has anyone looked at the success rate/methods  of our Box Kicking.(Video Analyst) We seem to boot it up with the end result is that we give the ball away on our own 10 Metre line.
-Any reason why the forwards don't take it on more themselves ???.Inch it forward ,get some aggression and momentum going . 
-Like to think there was some good reason for all the changes .
-We had our injury problems but there's were much worse.We had to pick a couple of 2nd choice players,they had to pick some 3rd 4th choice players.
-In hindsight ,glad i wasn't able to make the game.Condolences to those who did.
-Don't like to be so negative and i'm normally the last person to give Connacht grief ,but 22 unanswered points says it all .Snatched defeat in the jaws of victory .