Dragons 20 Connacht 22
Connacht secured their fourth win on the trot to escape Rodney Parade with their top eight hopes intact. It was not easy, but in coming from 20-10 behind to take the win ensures Connacht remain in the hunt for the URC quarter-finals.
“It was never going to be easy,” said coaching director Andy Friend. “There were a lot of reasons why we could have and should have lost that match, but I’m really proud of the boys after that performance. There were moments we will be kicking ourselves about, opportunities we didn’t take, but to get that win here was vital for our season and shows the continued growth and belief the boys have in the team.”
The Dragons, despite their lowly league position, were fully loaded with all eight internationals in their pack and when they took a 10-point lead after 47 minutes Connacht responded well. Although Paul Boyle failed to ground an opportunity, within a minute replacement Jarrad Butler had the wherewithal to pick the ball from a scrum to score. David Hawkshaw, a late replacement for Jack Carty who had pulled a hamstring, added the extras.
Good work from John Porch prompted another penalty to touch, and from the resulting maul replacement hooker Dave Heffernan was credited with the try, ensuring a 20-22 win after Sam Davies had missed two drop goal attempts.
That Connacht failed to utilise two extra men after the Dragons had been issued with red and yellow cards in the opening 40 minutes made for a nervy conclusion.
Level at the break, the Dragons had replied to an early Hawkshaw penalty with a superb Aaron Wainwright try on 11 minutes, before Cian Prendergast broke a tackle to open Connacht’s try account for a 7-10 lead. Two Will Read penalties on each side of the break and a Jared Rosser converted try then prompted the necessary gritty response from Conancht to grind out a valuable victory.
Scoring sequence: 9m Hawkshaw pen 0-3, 11m Wainwright try, Reed con 7-3; 20m Prendergast try, Hawkshaw con 7-10; 23m Reed penalty 10-10; HT 10-10; 421m Rosser try, Reed Con 17-10; 47m Reed pen 20-10; 50 M Butler try, Hawkshaw con 20-17; 64m Heffernan try 20-22.
Connacht: T O’Halloran, S Bolton, T Farrell, C Forde, J Porch, D Hawkshaw, C Blade (c), D Buckley, D Tierney-Martin, J Aungier, J Murphy, N Murray, C Prendergast, C Oliver, P Boyle.
Replacements: S Illo for Aungier (33m), D Heffernan for Tierney Martin and P Dooley for Buckley (both 52m), J Butler for Boyle (50m), S Jennings for Bolton (64).
Yellow card: Bolton (64m).
Dragons RFC: A O’Brien, J Rosser, S Hughes, M Clark A Hewitt, W Reed, R Williams (C), R Jones, B Roberts, L Brown, M Screech, B Carter, A Wainwright, T Basham, R Moriarty.
Replacements: E Dee for Roberts (51), H Keddie for Basham (51), L Fairbrother for Brown (54), G Nott for Wainwright (57).
Yellow card: Max Clarke 31m; Red card: Matthew Screech 32m.
Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy)
