It comes down to this.
If Munster can win this game against Connacht by any kind of margin, they will go more than two bonus-point wins clear of Connacht with two games left to play. In short, that will guarantee that Munster will play a PRO14 final for the first time since 2017 against an opponent that could be determined in Belfast this weekend. That alone qualifies this contest as a Big Game but, as with the entire world at the moment, this big game takes place in a weird context in that it’s happening in the middle of a test window.
That means that Connacht will, technically speaking, have more of their Category 1 starters available to them than Munster for what is a pretty important in-conference decider. Sure, Munster have a bit of wiggle room at the top thanks to a superbly managed conference performance since September, but Van Graan will still want business wrapped up right here and rightly so. I don’t think anyone in red will want to tidy up the place in the final next week or, god forbid, the week after so there’s definitely pressure here against a Connacht side that are firmly at the “win or bust” stage of the season.
Let’s have a look at the teams;
Connacht: 15. Tiernan O’Halloran, 14. John Porch, 13. Tom Daly, 12. Bundee Aki, 11. Matt Healy, 10. Jack Carty, 9. Caolin Blade; 1. Denis Buckley, 2. Dave Heffernan, 3. Finlay Bealham, 4. Ultan Dillane, 5. Gavin Thornbury, 6. Jarrad Butler, 7. Conor Oliver, 8. Paul Boyle
Replacements: 16. Shane Delahunt, 17. Matthew Burke, 18. Jack Aungier, 19. Niall Murray, 20. Eoghan Masterson, 21. Kieran Marmion, 22. Sean O’Brien, 23. Alex Wootton
The key to playing Connacht is managing and pressurising their kicking game.
At first glance, Connacht don’t really look like a team that has a clearly identifiable kicking game. If anything, you’d associate Connacht with a high tempo, wide-bore attacking game coupled with intricate strike moves off the scrum and lineout. In the PRO14, they are smack dab in the middle of the pack when we consider kicks out of hand so we can’t say that they are a kick first team. From a raw kick retention rate – literally the number of kicks that they get back directly – they are 11th so they are either not getting a return from their box kicks or they are not using them as a contestable means of moving the ball up the field.
I think it would be fair to say that Connacht are a “kick to pressure” team and the success and failure of their games against opponents they expect to give up a size disadvantage to hinges on this aspect of their tactical arsenal. Basically, if you can stop up Connacht in the middle section of the field and live with their kicking game, you’ll be a long way to building what you need to get a win against them.
With Jack Carty starting at #10, it’s a good bet that Connacht will lever most of their kicking responsibility onto him but John Porch, selected on the wing here, is another very comfortable kicker of the ball. Connacht’s kicking mostly comes into two states – their transitional kicking and their exit kicking.
Their transitional kicking links directly into their back row composition. Have a look at the below example for a good example of their contestable transitional kicking game.
Leinster run through a few setup phases in their 50-22 area before lifting a fairly average kick downfield, straight at John Porch. You can tell Connacht are keyed into kicking balls like this because Masterson is directing traffic downfield. Porch’s kick finds green grass and a few bounces but it’s taken to a new level by his chase as he scrags the Leinster receipt and brought his pack on-side.
Leinster are indecisive in the backfield and that opens up a jackal attempt for Oliver, who nails it for a penalty.
Butler, Oliver and Boyle will all be capable of the exact same in this game.
They’re also very patient during long kicking duels, with most of their back three being pretty decent kickers. Carty will drop back during these exchanges and has the capacity to punish a bad backfield rotation.
Connacht are always looking for grass here – even when Wootton has scope to put it straight out – and when Leinster switch off in the backfield, Carty levers pressure on the chasers by forcing a chase back and forcing a hasty exit out on the full by the young fullback. You might think that Connacht are a transition team and that they’d be likely to run this but more often than not, they’ll double down on the kickback and they have a hugely mobile core of backrows, midfielders and back three players to pressure any kick recipient that has had to turn and chase a bouncing ball.
If you exit poorly to Carty he’s also capable of mugging you off in transition with stuff like this;
I mean, what can you do there? Not walking Carty into a long, unpressured area of the field would be a good start. Especially with referees all over offside players running pressure lines in front of the kicker, sloppy exits like this is even more dangerous this weekend than it was during the Leinster game a few weeks ago.
I would stay patient with Connacht when it comes to kicking duels. Let them make the mistakes and avoid over chasing. I’d take a few ruck setups and exit through the box kick to pressure the likes of Healy under the high ball with Air Conway.
Connacht do look a little vulnerable on reverse side transitions – stitching the ball to the opposite side of the pitch to the kick. Benetton pressured Wootton on this one and got a nice, attackable kick on the return. Crucially, Benetton got him out of the game after the kick so Connacht couldn’t pressure the return. That opened up the other side of the pitch for Benetton to hit. They found space repeatedly and unbalanced Connacht on multiple phases.
If you can enter into a kicking duel where you can pressure the Connacht kick in transition – I believe there’s a sweet spot between taking the kicker out after the ball and making a committed tackle that prevents the Connacht backrow from moving on transition ball. This will be a priority for Conway, in particular, to turn our kick chase into real transition chances.
On set-exits, Connacht will use Carty to kick long down the field between the backfield defence. Connacht will really pressure the receipt if you decide to run it back – and the space they’ll usually give you before you meet their transition defence can be tempting to run straight back at – but it’s something Connacht will live with. The likes of Aki, Butler, Boyle and Oliver will hassle your first two or three transition rucks and you’ll be in a position where you’ll probably have to box kick or kick back yourself.
Carty did this to Leinster really effectively in the RDS a few weeks ago and it really stressed McGrath’s box kicking for good Connacht gains.
I’d look to handle this by getting Ben Healy’s kicking range in the backfield into the game. When Carty gives us a set exit like this, we need Healy punishing Connacht with deep lineouts in their own half.
Connacht are middle of the pack when it comes to lineout steals so they like kicking you into your own 22 if they can get the space but they have the 10th worse lineout in the league from a retention perspective and have lost the 3rd most lineouts in the tournament. With their back row of Boyle, Oliver and Butler they are down a primary jumper. Masterson – on the bench here – is a primary lineout outlet for Connacht usually and Boyle/Butler are tertiary options who are capable of jumping but they are not players I would want to send 3/4 balls too under pressure. That means that more lineout pressure will be levered on Dillane and Thornbury so we have the capacity to pressure Heffernan’s throw by squeezing the front with O’Donoghue and timing a counter pod in the middle to track Dillane and Thornbury.
Everything in this game is linked – your kicking game is actually your lineout if the opposition has the ability to turn your kick into a lineout in your own half. I feel this will be a key part of the winning of this game.
