Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Cons look to build on Ulster rout
CONNACHT flanker Eoghan Masterson is hopeful they can back up their record win over Ulster by scoring what would be only a second ever win away to Leinster.
Connacht produced their best performance of the season to run in six tries in a 44-16 win over Ulster and will now look to boost their Champions Cup qualification hopes when they head to the RDS on New Year’s day.
But the 24-year-old, who scored his second try of the campaign when he got Connacht off the mark at the Sportsground on Saturday night, expects a tough battle with Leinster but said they will go there on a high after notching a third win in a row in the league and Challenge Cup.
He said: “It will give us massive confidence but it’s completely different opposition, completely different venue. We are under no illusions of how big a test that is going to be.
“It’s a fixture we haven’t had much success in in the past. But we will enjoy our Christmas, get back together on Wednesday and I’m sure KK [coach Kieran Keane] will have a good plan for us to go up there and do the best we can.”
Masterson’s third minute score against Ulster was his seventh try in 52 appearances for Connacht and was the product of some good work on the training ground.
He said: “It wasn’t the most individually brilliant piece of play you will ever see. The maul, we put a big emphasis on it during the week, worked really hard on it. There were a lot of tough training sessions that put a lot of work into it.
“The easiest job is always the fella that dots it down. It’s always the lads at the front of the maul getting battered that do the hard work and I fall over the line.
“It was just good that team got a try up nice and early. It got our tails up a little bit and we kicked on from there.”