FRIEND’S NOT IMPRESSED BY LOW-KEY WIN
CONNACHT coach Andy Friend has demanded a huge improvement from his men as they head into a Heineken Champions Cup double against Gloucester despite notching a bonus point win at the Sportsground.
Connacht were on the back foot early on but once Bundee Aki crowned his new contract by getting the opening score, they never trailed.
But coach Friend (right) said it felt like a defeat as they were not clinical enough.
“It’s a weird one. We just said up in the coaches’ box it’s a bonus point win but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a loss.
“Credit to the Kings, they did put us under pressure but we have to be better in the way we execute things. We didn’t handle the football well and I thought certainly in the first-half, physically, we got dominated there,” said Friend.
A tackle count of 82-32 showed how much time Connacht were without the ball in the opening half.
But they were lethal in attack and crossed three times before the break in front of a crowd of 5,146 on a bitterly cold evening at the Sportsground.
They never really looked back once Aki got through to score after a good lineout maul and Conor Fitzgerald added the extras after 13 minutes. But the Kings hit back and got their reward when centre Erich Cronje scored despite the efforts of Eoghan Masterson and Paul Boyle after good pressure from the South Africans.
Connacht’s second try also came from a maul after a penalty to the right corner, with prop Finlay Bealham scoring his second try of the season. Colby Fainga’a sent Fitzgerald away from halfway to set up Connacht’s third try after 29 minutes with scrumhalf Caolin Blade also involved before Aki delivered the final pass for Aussie sevens player John Porch to score his first Connacht try.
Fitzgerald converted to push Connacht 12 clear but Kings were rewarded before the break with a try from Scott van Breda which the full-back then converted to leave it 19-12 at the interval.
It took Connacht less than three minutes after the restart to wrap up the bonus point.
It came after a good move involving Aki, Blade and Fitzgerald saw Matt Healy put Porch over for his second try to make it 24-12.
However, the quality of the game dipped after that with the outcome never in doubt.