Connacht aiming to use frustrations from Leinster loss against Ulster
Mind: Mack After Crombie Picture: ©inpho/james Hansen His To Speaking Defeat His Leinster Dejected Connacht's Side's
Connacht coach Pete Wilkins has urged his players to use their frustrations without being consumed by them as they turn their attention from a narrow defeat in Dublin to a huge game against Ulster in Galway next Saturday.
The westerners took 52 minutes to get on the scoreboard against the URC leaders at the Aviva Stadium, by which time they were trailing 17-0, but they fought back superbly with two tries taking them to the brink of a victory.
That they failed even to bank a bonus point was raw justice for their efforts, but all this was ultimately overshadowed by Mack Hansen’s impassioned critique of the officiating on the night and decisions that, he feels, have gone against Connacht for a number of years.
Hansen let rip at how what looked to be a clear head-on-head contact made by Jordie Barrett on Bundee Aki when clearing out a ruck went completely unnoticed by referee Chris Busby and TMO Mark Patton.
He highlighted how there was no check when Josh Ioane went off with a HIA after a clash of heads with Charlie Tector and compared all that to the repeated replays used after Ioane had made minimal high contact with Gus McCarthy earlier in the first-half.
If Barrett was very lucky not to receive some punishment for his clearout on Aki, then Hansen’s wider point – that Connacht are suffering repeated injustices at the hands of officials – really grabbed the attention and could yet land him in hot water with league officials.
“I’m not making excuses by any means but, like, when you just get it week after week, I feel it's got to be spoken about because it’s just getting to the point where it’s starting to really piss us off because we just feel we’re getting played out of games and we never ever get any calls.”
That was the clean version. There were a number of expletives thrown in as his frustrations poured out. Hansen said Wilkins couldn’t risk revealing his true feelings for fear of disciplinary action but the Ireland wing’s comments may yet earn him some down time.
Claims that they were “reffed out of the game for the first 40 minutes” and that they had been pressured by “it seemed, like 16 men out there instead of 15” will not go down well in the corridors of power, but they have clearly struck a nerve.
Officiating levels in the URC, in its various guises down the years, have long been a bone of contention and a video of Hansen letting loose in the post-match press conference has been viewed over half a million times.
Comments poured in from all corners of Ireland, Wales, the rest of the UK, South Africa and even Japan. None of which will be of any concern to Wilkins as he looks to recalibrate minds and bodies ahead of their next assignment with Ulster.
Hansen also spoke of his belief that Connacht are “finally starting to click into gear”, and how they made a league semi-final two years ago after losing the first five games, but they could do with a win now having lost four of the last five in the URC.
“It is an incredibly important game,” said Wilkins. “It is about finding a balance for us [and dealing with] that nagging frustration and ‘what if’ that we will carry out of this game and bring back along the motorway.
“For us it is important that we don’t let go of that and that, while we might have ran out of minutes here this evening, that we pick up where we left off and unload some of that frustration on our next opponents.
“That said, we also can’t spend half of the next week processing, we have to get over it pretty quickly because we train Monday and Tuesday, couple of days for Christmas and then in for a captain’s run.
“As I said, to the players there, remember that frustration. We certainly don’t lack for fire in the belly in those contests with Ulster and nor do they in return. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”