Connacht lost to Aviva Premiership side Saracens by 22 points to 5 on Saturday evening at the Sportsground. Eric Elwood’s men started the game without Johnny O’Connor and Ian Keatley which gave Miah Nikora and new signing Ezra Taylor the opportunity to display their talents.

With Saracens retaining possession for large tracts of the first half it was a test of Connacht’s resolve in defence, an area Elwood had vowed to work on after last weeks defeat to Harlequins, and the work had obviously been done with Connacht holding Saracens to a five nil lead at half time, Prop Richard Skuse scoring at the back of a driving maul.
Miah Nikora was unlucky not to put the home side ahead when he missed two penalty kicks on the half hour mark when Saracens firstly didn’t release in the tackle, and then drove in from the side of the ruck from the ensuing kick-off.

.Saracens made the most of the extended substitutes available with four changes at half time and a further seven during the course of the second half. This new look Saracens team attacked with renewed vigour and after a series of penalties Connacht conceded a penalty try for repeated infringements at the scrum. Connacht bounced back with some ferocious  attacking play, captain Frank Murphy linking with Miah Nikora and Tiernan O’Halloran who made an excellent break down the right wing only to be stopped metres from the line. Connacht showed great patience in the following phases with hard work from Bernie Upton, Michael Swift and Mike McComish and when George Kruis was sinbinned for pulling down the lineout Connacht made the most of the extra man in the pack and Adrian Flavin scored a deserved try after a well worked drive from the lineout. From the kickoff replacement Kameli Ratuvou undermined Connacht’s hard work when they failed to deal with the high kick and he scored on the left wing. Scottish international Kelly Brown scored Saracens final try after 77 minutes to leave the score 22 points to 5 at the fulltime whistle.

Director of Rugby Eric Elwood said that though he was happy with the improvements made in defense he was disappointed in conceding soft tries and coughing up the ball too easily.
“We have two weeks to get these things right, hopefully the team will be nice and fresh for our first Magners League game against the Dragons which is a must win game for us here at the Sportsgound”.
“We are a little more upbeat than last week, we made a good quality opposition work very hard and though we let in some soft scores we will take the positives out of it and if that helps us prepare for Dragons in two weeks we’ll be happy”.

Connacht face the Gwent Newport Dragons at the Sportsground on Saturday 4th September at 5.30pm in the first Magners League game of the 2010/11 season. Tickets can be purchased from www.ticketmaster.ie or from the Connacht Rugby offices on College Road.

Full match report to follow shortly.