RUGBY:THE BIG day is finally upon them, and barring a few more days to allow some players to recover from the various knocks picked up in the frustrating 25-17 defeat away to Harlequins last Friday, Saturday's visit of Toulouse to the Sportsground (kick-off 6pm) for Connacht's Heineken Cup home debut cannot come quickly enough.
All along Eric Elwood couldn’t have scripted their 100th European match any better, and his tone hasn’t changed.
Accordingly, the Connacht legend turned head coach was even more enthused than ever in the Sportsground yesterday as he contemplated the almost giddying prospect of his home province hosting Guy Noves’ four-time winners of the tournament. Buoyed by an increase in season tickets from roughly 800 last season to almost 3,200 this season, it is a guaranteed sell-out.
Toulouse sent back 1,000 of their 1,400 allocation, but only about 100 of them remain, and they are expected to be sold by this afternoon.
Elwood admitted no game in his 168-match career for his province, save perhaps for the visit of the All Blacks, quite compared to this one. “With the prestige they have in the competition, with the standing they have in the club game, it’s everything. It’s the dream draw, it’s the dream first (home) game and it’s the only word on everybody’s mouth all week. So, you’re going to have 9,000 people within the stadium, and I would say every man, woman and child in the province, if not in Ireland, hitting the red button to watch Connacht and see how they get on to play Toulouse,” he said, in reference to Sky’s interactive coverage.
“There’s great buzz and excitement and nervousness. It’s got it all. It’s the dream of everyone. On and off the park that’s the challenge for everyone and everyone is relishing it.”
Elwood confirmed there are a few walking wounded. On what was mainly an “organisational day”, Gavin Duffy (slight hamstring strain), Michael Swift, Paul O’Donoghue and Brett Wilkinson (all rested) sat out yesterday’s light work-out, while TJ Anderson (shoulder), Eoin Griffin (slight hamstring strain), Frank Murphy (groin strain) and Niall O’Connor (slight hamstring strain) took a limited part. So too did the teak-tough Ray Ofisa, despite the stiff neck which curtailed his involvement at the Stoop and which was to require a scan last night.
The A team were in Italy over the weekend and beat Rugby Reggio 29-11, where Mark McCrea (ankle) and Adrian Flavin (stiff neck) picked up injuries, but all in all, after taking the game to Harlequins so well that entering the final quarter they were two points adrift and had the momentum to go on and win, it would be no surprise if Elwood retained faith in the same team and replacements.
“Everybody wants to play against Toulouse. Everyone is fine, I would say,” he ventured, with a chuckle. “They’re all precautionary and it wasn’t a day to chase guys.”
Elwood and his staff eagerly perused Toulouse’s hard-earned win at home to Gloucester on Saturday, courtesy of Clement Poitrenaud’s late try, which also served to underline what a brutally tough pool Connacht have been pitched into.
Having extolled Gloucester, Elwood observed: “Maybe they were celebrating with five minutes to go before Toulouse struck back. We’re well aware of the quality they (Toulouse) have. They’ve so many quality players they’re always going to threaten, so that’s the challenge.
“We just don’t know what they’re going to choose. We could sit here and surmise who they’re going to pick, but either way it’s going to be a massive challenge for us,” said Elwood, who went through the squad with his backroom team and deduced that they could pick two different teams of virtual Test standard.
For example, neither Vincent Clerc, the World Cup’s joint leading try scorer, Thierry Dusautoir, who was completely and utterly the best player on the pitch in the World Cup final, have resurfaced for Toulouse since that defeat to New Zealand, and Elwood admitted he would be quite happy if that remained the case this Saturday.
The lesson, or more accurately the reminder, from Gloucester’s near miss in Toulouse was that for all the respect Connacht have to give Noves’ team, they cannot afford to stand off the reigning French champions and current Top 14 leaders.
“It’s important for us that we play our game. We can bring the physical side of our game, as we did last week, and we’re certainly going to have to bring that this Saturday against Toulouse. We’ll give them the respect they deserve but we’ll be looking to make life difficult for them here.”
Elwood re-iterated yesterday that Connacht are not here just for the ride. “We recognise the challenge within the group, they are tough games. We’re playing the four-time champions. But I think we are in the business of trying to win rugby matches and we fancy ourselves at home.”
