A nice set of results in the other games. The important ones all went our way.
A win against Cardiff all but guarantees top 8. And a TBP would have us sitting pretty for Europe, especially if Stormers beat Munster.
But as it stands the only way to completely guarantee Champions Cup for next season is to win the Challenge Cup, so best go ahead and beat Benetton ...

LOL Pinky

Edinburgh have a few internationals back. This might not be straightforward ...

rugby.connacht.pink/?p=121

EDIT: I have no idea why this came out in the Lions thread - I replied to the Edinburgh article, but sure whatever ...
(Zebre holding up OK for now)

That five pointer will do us no harm anyway! There other results were bad from a European qualification perspective, with Munster and Sharks keeping pace, but on the other hand good from a QF point of view, with Treviso, Edinburgh and Cardiff all beaten.
To catch Munster we will probably need to win all our games, but if they win their next three at home, they could be uncatchable before the European knockouts even start. So it seems remote.
If we were to win 4 out of 5, Sharks would need to lose 4 out of their remaining 7, which is not impossible.
If they beat Stormers on Saturday, that route looks very difficult.
We might just have to do it the hard way and win one or other of the cups!

(Of course all of this presupposes the qualification rules are the same as this season, I can't actually find that officially confirmed anywhere, or even if the number of teams is the same)

I tried to make some sense of the table and how we make our way up it here: rugby.connacht.pink/
I'm doubtless being too optimistic but there's still hope ...

Biggest surprise on the teamsheet is Paul Williams ...

CONNACHT RUGBY MATCHDAY 23 VS EMIRATES LIONS
Saturday 28th January, 19:35 @ The Sportsground

Number/Name/Caps
15. Tiernan O’Halloran (214)
14. Diarmuid Kilgallen (12)
13. Tom Farrell (90)
12. Cathal Forde (7)
11. John Porch (72)
10. Jack Carty (190) (C)
9. Caolin Blade (161)
1. Peter Dooley (12)
2. Shane Delahunt (124)
3. Jack Aungier (43)
4. Darragh Murray (5)
5. Niall Murray (47)
6. Josh Murphy (11)
7. Conor Oliver (54)
8. Jarrad Butler (107)

16. Dylan Tierney-Martin (15)
17. Jordan Duggan (34)
18. Dominic Robertson-McCoy (76)
19. Leva Fifita (22)
20. Shamus Hurley-Langton (12)
21. Kieran Marmion (222)
22. Tom Daly (71)
23. Oran McNulty (12)

Connacht v...