{"id":10707,"date":"2022-11-07T17:06:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T17:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10707"},"modified":"2022-11-07T17:06:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T17:06:24","slug":"connacht-ready-for-shot-at-ulster-as-friends-men-advance-in-good-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10707","title":{"rendered":"Connacht ready for shot at Ulster as Friend’s men advance ‘in good shape’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Bailey reports from Thomond Park<\/em><\/p>\n

GIVEN CONNACHT ARRIVED with a reconfigured side and more than one eye on the serious business around the corner, Andy Friend wanted to assess his side\u2019s performance against Munster through the prism of three criteria; pride, opportunities and momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cPride, tick,\u201d the head coach began. \u201cOpportunities, tick. Momentum, we lost but it wasn\u2019t a bad performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finlay Bealham made a try-scoring return on Saturday. Source: Inpho\/Billy Stickland<\/p>\n

Even in defeat, Connacht\u2019s first in five Pro14 outings, there were positives to extract for the western province as they head into their quarter-final showdown with Ulster.<\/p>\n

Click Here: st george illawarra dragons jersey<\/a><\/p>\n

The visitors more than played their part in an entertaining inter-pro at Thomond Park, fronting up in the physicality stakes despite arriving with nothing tangible to play for, while a number of players seized their starting opportunities with standout displays.<\/p>\n

Overall, it meant Friend was very pleased with his much-changed side\u2019s showing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDisappointed with the loss, however, quite pleased with a few performances out there,\u201d he continued. \u201cI thought we didn\u2019t stop trying and whilst it\u2019s a loss, that\u2019s the end of the regular season and now we focus towards Ulster.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly didn\u2019t go backwards. We haven\u2019t lost momentum. A win there would have given us massive momentum, but the mood in the changing room at the end there was, we didn\u2019t win, we played okay and let\u2019s get all eyes on Ulster now.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Friend using the dead-rubber to rest a number of his front-liners, and then withdraw the likes of Bundee Aki and Jarrad Butler early in the second period after they had enjoyed useful work-outs, this was a relatively pleasing evening for Connacht.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No new injury concerns, coupled with the sharp performance of Kieran Marmion and the encouraging showing from Conor Dean on debut, means Connacht go into the play-offs with selection headaches and no shortage of confidence.<\/p>\n

With their first victory over Ulster in Belfast since 1960 still fresh in the minds, the western province feel they are \u2018in good shape\u2019 as they prepare for next Saturday\u2019s all-Irish quarter-final.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s good confidence within the group, there\u2019s a closeness and a bond amongst the players and the staff,\u201d Friend added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s clarity around what it is we\u2019re doing. We\u2019ll see how we pull up on Monday but in there now, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any serious injuries. I think we\u2019re heading into a quarter-final week in good shape. We just have to make sure we know our detail for Ulster and then it\u2019s about getting out there and performing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing there, we know we can win up there. We have played them twice this year, we know we have beaten them twice this year. It is knockout football, it is another four months into the season since we last played them, they will be a different rugby side but we are a different rugby side.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are always looking for different mental edges if you can but we certainly know we can go up there and win because we have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our new podcast, The42 Rugby Weekly, here:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Bailey reports from Thomond Park GIVEN CONNACHT ARRIVED with a reconfigured side and more than one eye on the serious business around the corner, Andy Friend wanted to assess his side\u2019s performance against Munster through the prism of three criteria; pride, opportunities and momentum. \u201cPride, tick,\u201d the head coach began. \u201cOpportunities, tick. Momentum, we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}