To Hell or Connacht - or Edinburgh for Bradley...

How do people think Connacht are doing? For me while the performances have improved to a certain extent and we have lost a number of good players to other provinces I am disappointed where we are at the moment. We have lost 7 on the bounce and despite the excellent performance against Quins we seem to have the same old failings as before.

So my question is twofold....
- Is Elwood going to struggle the same way as Bradley in terms of getting the team improving and are we going to need to rely on an Irish win to qualify for the HC next year.
- How do Edinburgh fans think Bradley is doing now that he has a decent player base. He wasnt well liked in Connacht for a few reasons so interested to hear how he is perceived now?

newbie wrote:How do people think Connacht are doing? For me while the performances have improved to a certain extent and we have lost a number of good players to other provinces I am disappointed where we are at the moment. We have lost 7 on the bounce and despite the excellent performance against Quins we seem to have the same old failings as before.

So my question is twofold....
- Is Elwood going to struggle the same way as Bradley in terms of getting the team improving

Well they know have improved funding from the IRFU and for the first time i can remember have quite a few indigenous players making the spine of the team like griffin, O' Halloran, muldoon, O' Connor, duffy, murphy, Browne which will only improve the support for the province.

and are we going to need to rely on an Irish win to qualify for the HC next year.

Think expecting to become the third irish province especially after losing so many important players is unrealistic expectations of elwood so soon. He has got them playing more running rugby and they are definitely improving.

Connacht are always going to struggle and will always find it hard to consistently perform. I dont think Elwood is or was the panacea for all their ills and Bradley is a good coach who is showing what he can do with Edinburgh at the moment. He was always a good coach and thinker of the game. Not really appreciated up wesht.

Keatly and Carr are big losses.

Like you said, the Quins game was a decent performance.

Thought we might have got a win out of last 2 games.

We're definatly going to have to rely on one of the other provinces to win for us to qualify again next season.

Hoping to have a big performane against Gloucester, mayube even sneak a win, probably a bit to much to ask though.

On the facebook page connacht apparently have a major announcement coming out any minute.

2 year contracts for Griffin and McSharry. Good news for Connacht. Pleased to hear it

Signing Dan Carter is a major announcement, a current player getting a new contract is an announcement.

As for Bradley, he's not the great Satan of rugby coaches as his detractors would have it, but he's not a great coach either. With a poor squad depth at Connacht he decided to target games, mostly in Europe. But he didn't win enough of them tbh.

He'll do better with Edinburgh, he has a better base to build on and more depth, but his legacy at Connacht is seven seasons, seven losing records, some big scalps, but some huge defeats as well.

well i didnt prefix it with 'major' grey. The good people on the facebook page did that. Given that Connacht just lost 4 of their senior/best players in one fell swoop in the summer i think they may have a different idea of what news constitutes being 'major' for the province.

Aye, the Connacht PR machine is a bit out of touch I reckon!

Well i had hoped to be hearing about a big signing truth be told grey!

Or getting rid of NOC

He'll do better with Edinburgh, he has a better base to build on and more depth, but his legacy at Connacht is seven seasons, seven losing records, some big scalps, but some huge defeats as well.

Doesnt look like Elwood is going to do much better...

Can't really complain about Bradley. He is certainly much better than that goon Moffat who dropped players who were playing well......work that one out.

Bradley has shown a great deal of faith in some of the youngsters at Edinburgh namely McInally, Denton, Gilchrist, Leonard, Scott, Jones and that faith is being rewarded by those players playing well for him.

Very happy with Bradley and the kind of rugby Edinburgh are playing at the moment. Long may it continue.


I will add however that Visser is something of a carrier bag in terms of tries at the moment. The man is phenomenal.

Elwood had an excellent first season but he's been majorly handicapped by losing four of his best players.I don't think he can really improve the team unless he's able to keep a squad together and build on it.
I think Bradley is a decent coach but he stayed too long at Connacht,I think the change was good for both himself and Connacht.

I don't think its fair to say Elwood isn't doing better than Bradley.

Connacht have moved up to near a mid table team under Elwood, rather than firmly at the bottom.

Also the Squad Elwwod got lost its 3 best players, and for such a small squad those players really mattered.

If you look, he lost lots of players, but also gained lots of new players, it was always going to take time to build a team from them.

Its hard to say if he's doing better or not, as he also has more funding, and entry to the H-cup than Bradley.

I have to say most Irish rugby fans think Elwwod is the man to take Connacht forward, something that wasn't said about Bradley.

I'll confess to snorting when Bradley's appointment was announced, and then mocking his recruitment efforts - but as Radge says, the performances, if not always the results, speak volumes in reply. His faith in the youngsters is most impressive

i suspect Bradley has come to Edinburgh at a very good time to be a coach with a good crop of young players coming thru. Its easier to look a good coach when you have good players

DOD wrote:He'll do better with Edinburgh, he has a better base to build on and more depth, but his legacy at Connacht is seven seasons, seven losing records, some big scalps, but some huge defeats as well.

Doesnt look like Elwood is going to do much better...

Hard to tell, they were better last year than they are this year, but while the HEC has been a morale boost for the fans, it's clear Connacht can't fight a war on two fronts and their form is suffering as a result. An Irish province winning the HEC or Amlin will again be their only chance of HEC rugby next year, if that doesn't happen they might be a lot stronger in the Pro12 than they are now.

As was mentioned, they've lost their best 4 starters, and in very important positions. Not easy to adjust to that. But on top of that they lost more or less half of their entire squad last year and are rebuilding all over again. Such is their lot.