TWO IRISH generals, one marshalling the best club side in England, the other embroiled in a passion project he always knew would have more bad days than good.
Not that this needs to be seen as a bad day for Eric Elwood or Connacht. This was more about Harlequins proving their power game could, finally, grind out victory in the unique setting that is The Sportsground.
“Do you ever come here and have an easy ride?” Conor O’Shea rhetorically mused in the aftermath. “I’ve been coming here all my life and you don’t. When a team base their season around one match, you see it in the build-up and everything around it. You feel the crowd and if you get your defensive line wrong to concede that first try, well, you are going to be in a game.”
O’Shea was asked about the young Connacht backs but drove the conversation towards Elwood’s legacy.
“Eric is stepping down and he is a very close friend of mine and he has kicked plenty of high balls to me but what he’s left behind in Connacht rugby,” he stops himself, changing tack, “And he is not finished yet. We have to play them again at The Stoop, this isn’t over. They have to host Biarritz and they have the Rabo to get up as high as possible but when you look at fellas like [Dave] McSharry and the lines he runs, you look at Tiernan O’Halloran, you’ve got Robbie Henshaw, Kieran Marmion, think of the talent; you’ve got Eoin Griffin as well.
“That’s great talent. Fair play.” There was no rain, but the wind had a massive say on why Harlequins refused to put boot to ball in the first half and Connacht were forced to adopt a similar approach after the break.
“You couldn’t,” O’Shea explained. “It was perfect conditions [for running rugby], I walked out on the pitch for the warm-up and you felt the wind, it was pretty strong. You could see some of the kicks were holding up. When I say strong, not strong for Galway. This was ideal to keep the ball in hand.” So everyone did just that, except for a few ill-judged grubbers by Griffin, but Elwood, like everyone else, knew Danny Care’s brace of tries in those 10 minutes before the interval were hammer blows that ultimately decided this contest.
“We were leading 19-9 and they got 15 unanswered points,” said Elwood. “One soft set-piece try and the other one, once you give them the ball, they’re so good. At half-time it was 65-35 percent possession and you can’t give teams like Harlequins that much ball. It was disappointing but you can’t be too downbeat about it.”
He’s right, the sheer size of Quins forwards like Nick Easter, Olly Kohn and James Johnson trapped Connacht’s proverbial head in a vice as they adopted the Joe Pesci role of Nicky Santoro in Casino by ruthlessly turning the screw. “I think if you look at the territory, I don’t think we got in their 22 in that second half,” said Elwood. “They just shut out the game pretty well.
“They’ve got some pretty experienced guys that know what to do in those positions.” The biggest compliment that can be paid to Connacht was the pleasure Harlequins took from this scalp.
“Connacht is one of the most difficult places I have ever come to,” said Care. “I think I have won only once in six or seven attempts. This is a fantastic win for us.”
