Lam’s lads set up do or die date in Toulouse

CONNACHT are on the verge of reaching the Champions Cup last eight for the first time after Pat Lam’s side battered Zebre at the Sportsground.

For the second weekend in a row Zebre shipped ten tries away to Irish opponents and the five-point haul puts qualification for the quarter-finals within reach for the PRO12 champions.

Matt Healy, Tiernan O’Halloran and Kieran Marmion all ran in two tries each, while an impressive try-scoring display from John Cooney on his first start at fly-half helped Connacht to a 14th win in a row over the Parma outfit.

They travel to Toulouse next week for the final match shootout and Lam said: “We’ve worked hard right through this pool to get to the situation where we go out for the win next weekend.

“Our goal was to get to five points. We got that but we’re bitterly disappointed with our defence. We had a goal of not letting them cross the line and we failed to achieve that.”

After the concession of 70 points last weekend against Leinster, it was expected that Connacht could also pick apart this Zebre defence. And Healy became the first try scorer for Connacht after one minute and 39 seconds.

A barrage of tries looked certain after that early breach, but instead Connacht allowed Zebre to dominate territorially and back rows Johan Meyer and Federico Ruzza both barged over from close range as they earned a 14-7 lead.

But the gaps in the Zebre defence were yawning at times and it was no surprise to see the home side draw level midway through the half thanks to Cooney’s first Champions Cup try, and the half-back then sent O’Halloran over under the posts after 23 minutes.

Four minutes later Bealham claimed his first European try off the back of another rolling maul and three minutes from the break Marmion also dived over.

In between the fourth and fifth tries Zebre had Lloyd Greef and Pietro Ceccarelli sin binned for a high tackle and a maul infringement, and against 13 men Marmion sent Ronaldson through a gaping hole for a 40-14 interval lead.

The only question after that was how much Connacht could improve their scoring difference and further tries from Healy and O’Halloran in the opening four minutes brought their tally to 54 points.

Marmion and his replacement Caolin Blade raced in tries number nine and ten as they coasted to the final whistle.