{"id":10730,"date":"2022-11-24T17:08:47","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T17:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10730"},"modified":"2022-11-24T17:08:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T17:08:47","slug":"to-win-in-france-is-a-great-achievement-friend-and-connacht-march-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=10730","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;To win in France is a great achievement&#8217;: Friend and Connacht march on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CONNACHT HEAD COACH Andy Friend said he always believed his men could secure the victory they needed in Bordeaux to advance to the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup for the tenth time.<\/p>\n<p>Connacht looked to be on their way out when they trailed by eight points with nine minutes left on the clock but a second try of the match from Matt Healy and an intercept from Jack Carty snatched a dramatic 33-27 win.<\/p>\n<p>Carty\u2019s score crowned a great week for the Athlone man after he was named in the Ireland squad for the Six Nations, one of three uncapped Connacht players called up Joe Schmidt alongside scrum-half Caolin Blade and centre Tom Farrell.<\/p>\n<p>Friend said they were pleased to advance to a quarter-final showdown against pool opponents Sale Sharks despite a performance that was far from perfect.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are yet to play our best game of rugby and our errors are keeping the opposition in games but we showed a lot of character and belief again and managed to get the win and the bonus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Click Here: <a href='https:\/\/www.jerstores.com\/Teams\/Teams-NRL-Telstra-Premiership\/Teams-Sea-Eagles' title='manly sea eagles rugby store'>manly sea eagles rugby store<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo win in France is a great achievement, we have done it and we have a quarter-final to look forward to now against Sale.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know what\u2019s coming there but between now and then we have some huge Pro14 games to concentrate on, starting next weekend in Cardiff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe certainly made it hard on ourselves. But I felt we would always do it, we had the composure and thankfully it came good when it mattered most.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our new podcast, Heineken Rugby Weekly on The42, here:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p  >\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CONNACHT HEAD COACH Andy Friend said he always believed his men could secure the victory they needed in Bordeaux to advance to the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup for the tenth time. Connacht looked to be on their way out when they trailed by eight points with nine minutes left on the clock but&#8230;<\/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-10730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730","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=10730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}