Conncht Rugby may not be in the best place at the moment, but veteran Michael Swift reckons there is nowhere better to play than the home of French champions Toulouse this weekend.
Having lost opportunities over the last month to halt a losing sequence, the most capped Connacht player says travelling to the home of the European aristocrats for Saturday’s Heineken Cup fourth round fixture will inspire another strong performance.
“It is not the worst fixture in our current form. I see it as a positive,” he says. “The expectations are probably not high, the pressure will be off, and I can’t wait to play in Toulouse - it will be experience to savour.
“It will have a buzz we have not felt before and there could be up to 600 supporters in green, and I know we will show up.”
Swift, who returned from injury last weekend for the visit to Aironi, says the run of results is testing the squad, but he believes it will be turned around. He also asks for patience and support from Connacht fans, whose faith is also being tested.
“I met a lady this morning in the coffee shop and she laid it on the line and told me she was sick of the situation at the moment. To be honest I was in a state of shock and I wished I could have explained to her that whatever she and the supporters are feeling, multiply that by 100 and that’s what I am feeling now.
“ We know where we are in the league and the run we are on, it is the worst in which I have been involved in Connacht, and at the back of your mind it does affect you, but all I can ask of supporters is to stick with us and we will turn it around, but we need supporters to be supportive.
“I know they have the right to vent their anger, but when I read that players are not giving 100 per cent, that for me is a like a personal insult. We know we’re in a privileged position to do what we do and I have always said it takes a special character to play for Connacht, but you don’t knock on a ball if you are not trying, it is not a lack of heart if you drop a ball.”
Swift believes at least three of the last 13 matches could have been victories were it not for a couple of missed kicks.
“Let’s call a spade a spade, we have missed some kicks we should have got. A couple of kicks here and there, and yes, we could have won at least three of the last few games. Certainly it does get to me, but all you can do is keep believing in our systems and the systems we have in place will get us the victories. The problem is in executing the system to the best we can and last weekend [against Aironi] we didn’t. There was a crazy statistic of turnovers, but as I said, it’s not through a lack of heart. It is just a case of getting that first victory which is the hardest.”
That victory is unlikely to come at Stadio Ernest-Wallon against a Toulouse team smarting from their loss to Harlequins and now needing to claim a bonus-point victory. And Connacht are suffering a host of injuries again this week - some 10 players of their squad, including scrumhalf Frank Murphy who is undergoing a groin operation this week; Johnny O’Connor, who had a plate inserted in his cheek after three facial fractures; Ronan O’Loughney, who should be available next week for Harlequins, Eoin Griffin and Brian Tuohy.
With two remaining Heineken Cup fixtures before the break for the internationals, Connacht will once again be relying on key players like captain Gavin Duffy, Mike McCarthy, Swift, George Naoupu, John Muldoon, Brett Wilkinson, Tiernan O’Halloran, and David McSharry who have had little rest from action throughout this tough sequence of games.
“It has been a hard run,” says assistant coach Dan McFarland.” but we have gone at it full tilt, and on three occasions we have under-performed. Now we want two performances in a row. We do have to take into account our small squad and we recognise if we play at 70 per cent, we won’t win the games. We have to play at a much higher percentage than any one else to win, and everyone understands the nature of the task ahead of us - Toulouse will be running out of the tunnel having lost their last game at home in the Heineken Cup and that makes for an interesting afternoon.”
McFarland echoes the concerns of coach Eric Elwood and the management team of Connacht’s lack of consistency, which was evident against Aironi last weekend when they lost 20 - 6 and failed to gain a losing bonus point from a match they had targeted as a “must win”.
“How can we play against the Heineken Cup champions, outscore them two tries to nil, and felt we had done enough to be happy with our performance outside the kicking and discipline, and then follow that up with a performance in Aironi - a game that was very winnable - with a performance I would describe as abject? We did not learn the lessons from discipline the previous week and made far too many errors. That led to us losing our grip on the game and consequently we lost the match.”
Despite playing most of the rugby, three penalties in the opening 15 minutes had Connacht 9 - 0 down and hopes of staging a second-half comeback were dealt a major blow when left wing Sinoti Sinoti broke through some poor tackling to grab the only try of the game.
Connacht could not resurrect themselves despite having the Italians under all sorts of pressure, and all they could muster was two penalties in a display which lacked sufficient composure and tactical awareness.
