Warriors rain on the parade for Connacht’s Keane
NEW arrival Jarrad Butler was handed his competitive debut for Connacht last night in their Pro14 opener against Glasgow Warriors at The Sportsground. In fact it was new faces all around as coach Kieran Keane was sitting in the dugout – but he watched his side lose 18-12 to a strong Glasgow outfit.
Bundee Aki returned to the Connacht side, linking up with Eoin Griffin, and always looked a threat, breaking lines, available as a dangerous outlet when the men in green broke forward.
But as the weather worsened it was Glasgow who controlled the game and it was they who crucially got the game’s only two tries.
Centre Alex Dunbar was making his 100th Glasgow appearance.
Warriors assistant coach Jonathan Humphreys said before the game: ‘There are different people at Glasgow, there are different coaches at Connacht and with pre-season games you can’t really tell how they’re going to go.
‘Reaching 100 caps will mean a lot to Alex Dunbar, he says it’s been a long time coming. It’s a special group, those 100-cap guys, so it’ll be a proud moment for him.’
By the end it was a good day for Dunbar but the westerners made a bright start in Galway.
Jack Carty popped over an early penalty in the second minute to get the home fans
warmed up as the Atlantic wind and rain made its presence felt.
And Glasgow’s Peter Horne may well have been cursing the weather as his first attempt to level the match seemed to draw left in a strong gust, as it cannoned off the post.
He was given a shot at redemption two minutes later though and brought the scores level at 3-3.
Connacht were in an attacking mood though and twice looked to have gone over the visitors’ line, denied first by the Television Match Official and then John Muldoon’s surge was not rewarded as the ref brought play back for an earlier infringement. Carty did make it 6-3 with his second kick of the game.
Glasgow moved up a gear as the first half went on and grew into their attacking game plan, running hard at the Connacht backs. Handling errors proved costly for the Scots. And just before half-time, on their own 22, Glasgow knocked on.
Infringing on the following scrum, Connacht took full advantage as Carty kicked well to give his side a six-point lead at the break.
The Scots came out firing for the second-half and put Keane’s defensive structure under scrutiny.
The try-line was unbreached but Horne closed the gap with a penalty from just outside the home 22. And the Warriors compounded the misery in the 47th minute when Ali Price broke from a scrum and finally made for the line, out-half Horne converting to make it 13-9.
It was that man again, Carty in the 60th minute who drew his side within a point of the Warriors from a penalty.
But as the weather turned even nastier so did the scoreline from a Connacht point of view.
Lee Jones was unstoppable as he powered through the home line, earning the second try of the match.
Horne missed the conversion to leave a six-point gap between the sides with just under 10 minutes to go.
Keane’s side pushed and probed and sought answers from their runners, but to no avail. A losing bonus point is their only reward as they look to the long trip to the Southern Kings next week.