CONNACHT...23 HARLEQUINS...18: In the end, love was not enough. A fanatical home support of 6,000 willed Connacht towards a perfect ending to yesterday's Parker Pen Challenge Cup semi-final but a marvellous effort fell just short enough to make the sense of loss all the more acute.
The consolation was the most disappointing victory ever seen at the Sportsground. The manner of this semi-final exit was dramatic and agonising enough to leave nary a dry eye in the house, but moral victories don't matter anymore. So Connacht's trophy cabinet, unfurnished for a century, remains empty.
Yesterday, they came very close to a major final appearance but fatally they could not close the deal. They lost because they simply ran out of gas.
The withdrawal of Matt Mostyn on the eve of the match was a major disruption. When Wayne Munn, Connacht's converted full back, got injured, Michael Bradley had to alter his three-quarter line to such an extent that Conor O'Loughlin, the reserve scrumhalf, matched up against Ugo Monye on the wing.
Bandaged and bruised, they held tough and came within a score of winning overall. An heroic and sustained hour-long performance put Connacht in a perfect position - 23-10 ahead with just 15 minutes remaining - but, having arrived there, they lacked the killer poise and were, in truth, out on their feet.
Harlequins' smooth and controlled repossession of this match in the final quarter was admirable. They were deeply rattled by the rawness of this Irish experience but were completely ascendant during the final 10 minutes, with Will Greenwood stretching for a try after the visiting pack banged and mauled through the desperate Connacht resistance.
Paul Burke missed the conversion and also scuffed a drop-goal attempt deep in Connacht's 22 but, such was the pressure they exerted, it was inevitable that Connacht ceded the penalty that Burke clipped over at the end of normal time.
Nigel Whitehouse played an astonishing eight minutes of injury time and although Connacht poured forward in need of a try, their efforts were honest but tired.
When Dan McFarland charged into the 22 five minutes into injury time, Connacht were fortunate to earn a scrum but from the put-in, the Harlequins pack just steamrolled forward and regained possession. Connacht's hopes ended there.
Fifteen minutes earlier, the atmosphere had been completely different. The game was level, 10-10, at the break but when Eric Elwood floated a drop-goal just two minutes after the restart, the first real surge of anticipation went around the ground.
Harlequins would not breach the Connacht 22-yard line for a full 26 minutes as the home team enjoyed its best period.
Mark McHugh fired a penalty to make it 16-10. Then came another surge forward and Elwood got over the goal line under the Harlequins posts after 56 minutes for perhaps the most emotional try ever scored at the Galway ground. Now 21-10 up, this was Connacht's moment, for Harlequins looked bereft of ideas.
There may have been an element of hubris in Burke's celebratory high-stepping jig as he faked John O'Sullivan to deliver a try on 17 minutes that, after the conversion, gave Harlequins a 19-3 aggregate lead. It was rather early for such overt expressionism and the dance was entirely gone from Burke's feet when he gingerly picked himself up following a pounding from the Connacht second row after half-time.
O'Sullivan and Bernard Jackman were the influences that Connacht have come to rely on and Darren Yapp and McHugh provided real options across the three-quarters.
But Harlequins did not panic. The licence for invention that Mark Evans gives his team makes them highly enjoyable to watch and Harlequins sought to move the ball wide in the face of Connacht's onslaught.
All through, Monye's dazzling first steps made the ball in his hands a fearful prospect and when he got into a one-on-one situation against O'Loughlin, a breakaway try loomed. But O'Loughlin somehow wrapped the winger up in a tackle.
Whitehouse whistled Monye for not releasing, Andrew Farley punched the air in delight and McHugh stepped up for a 35-metre penalty that would have made it 25-10. His strike was clean but the shot, just five metres in from the touchline, tailed wide.
Three minutes later Greenwood - prominent and utterly controlled and strong in the key phase - scored his try.
The London team deserved to win what was an absorbing contest overall. Connacht's superb and restorative season under Michael Bradley deserved some sort of finale, a grand day out. Unfortunately that wasn't to be.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 9 mins: P Burke pen, 0-3; 15: M McHugh pen, 3-3; 17: P Burke try, con 3-10; 24: D Yapp try, M McHugh con, 10-10 (half-time 10-10); 42: E Elwood drop goal, 13-10; 47: M McHugh pen, 16-10; 56: E Elwood try, 21-10; 57: M McHugh con, 23-10; 79: W Greenwood try, 23-15; 80: P Burke pen 23-18.
CONNACHT: D Hewitt; C McPhillips, D Yapp, M McHugh, W Munn; E Elwood, M Walls; A McFarland, B Jackman, P Bracken, D Browne, A Farley, M Swift, M Lacey, J O'Sullivan. Replacements: T Robinson for D Hewitt (26 mins), C O'Loughlin for W Munn (57 mins), A Clarke for P Bracken (72 mins), M McCarthy for D Browne (74 mins).
HARLEQUINS: G Duffy; D Harder, W Greenwod, M Deane, U Monye; P Burke, S Keogh; C Jones, J Hayter, J Dawson, K Rudzki, S Miall, P Sanderson, A Vos, T Diprose. Replacements: M Worsley for C Jones (50 mins).
Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).
