Gloucester v Connacht

Connacht XV to Face Gloucester
Connacht Rugby have announced the starting XV that will face Gloucester this weekend (Kingsholm, Saturday 17th December, kick-off 15.40)

The side sees just 2 changes from the starting team that narrowly lost out to Gloucester last weekend. Johnny O'Connor's timely return to full fitness sees him replace Ray Ofisa who was taken off with a knee injury while Eoin Griffin steps in for Kyle Tonetti who moves to the bench. The only other change sees Dylan Rogers replace Denis Buckley as replacement prop.

Connacht have recently been boosted with the re-signing of four key contracts and all four will start this weekend's match. Centres Eoin Griffin and Dave McSharry have both committed the next two years to the Province as has John Muldoon with Johnny O'Connor singing up until at least the end on the 2012/13season.


Connacht XV to face Gloucester (Saturday 17th December, Kingsholm, 3.40pm)


15 Gavin Duffy (C)

14 Mark McCrea

13 Eoin Griffin

12 Dave McSharry

11 Tiernan O'Halloran

10 Niall O'Connor

09 Frank Murphy

01 Brett Wilkinson

02 Ethienne Reynecke

03 Ronan Loughney

04 George Naoupu

05 Mike McCarthy

06 Dave Gannon

07 Johnny O'Connor

08 John Muldoon


16 Adrian Flavin

17 Dylan Rogers

18 Rodney Ah You

19 Mick Kearney

20 Eoin McKeon

21 Paul O'Donohoe

22 Matthew Jarvis

23 Kyle Tonetti

Interesting Tonetti gets the replacement spot. It's a tight call between him, Fets and Henry but I thought Fets looked the liveliest of the three last weekend.

It's a killer missing Swifty, with George stuck in the middle of the pack again and (dear god) Mul once more at 8! Hopefully they'll swap around a bit between attack and defence.

The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results!!

Eric? Maybe?



Ah well, COME ON CONNACHT!!!!!!

every time i blind my eyes im having nightmares of NOC playing on saturday

Well, all I can say is Come on Connacht !!!!

Well at least he's consistent!

Who me ????

Great to have Griffin back, a win here would boost us nicely for the interpros. Come on Connacht

Mcrea with two good takes.

Great try

O'Connor won't thank Toh for the angle though.

great try, unreal, but up until then I was worried about our attack being too easy to read, running up, trying a bit of a dummy and getting stuck, McSharys break was a big one, but the intercept and the link play was as good as you could have hoped for

very smart by Ethienne there, ball knocked on, and he didnt go for it, but he was right as he would have been offside and would have given away a penalty. Although 13-10 at half time, would take that any day, well done lads good work so far now finish the job

Excellent first half, deservedly

Keep it up Connacht.

Sickened

This has become true farce, you couldn't make up this many ways to lose a game. Gloucester must have had the ball all of 5 minutes in the 2nd half. When the ball went loose just before May's try I though JOC was going to get it. Maybe he got caught between diving on it or getting a boot to it. He had a massive game. Really gutted by this loss.