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Head coach Andy Friend is confident that his Connacht squad will show the depth of their character this coming Sunday when they face Stade Francais in Paris at 1 PM in the Heineken Champions Cup.
The Westerners know that a win against the French side will see them qualify for the knock-out rounds of the competition for the first time in the club’s history.
And, despite the disappointment of losing at home to the Leicester Tigers – 29-28– last weekend, Friend believes that his players will have the correct mentality in order to process the defeat and take the necessary lessons into Sunday’s game and use them to their advantage.
“All I do know is that we have learned from that,” the Australian said of the round three game with Leicester at the Sportsground.
“Listen, there’s so many learns we get this year in every game and we seem to get good learns out of it. What was really pleasing was we had Sunday and Monday off and there was a lot of conversations going on over the weekend, people owning things, people putting their hand up, so many good things happened.
“But, at the end of the day, we let an eighteen-point lead slip, so we bounced back in here on Tuesday and there was no hiding from that: it was put to bed and we’ve got an energized team now looking forward to Stade.”
Friend is sure that the route to any Connacht victory will be through the quick attacking game that the Sportsground men always look to operate with – one which he says will suit the Parisians 4G pitch – and takes confidence from how well that approach worked in the Leicester game, despite the result.
“All we know is that we need to turn up to Stade in Paris on Sunday and we need to play our best brand of rugby. And if we do that and we put out a really good performance, I truly think we can win over there in France. That’s what we’re going to focus on.
“We’re going to be picking a team, it’s a 4G pitch, that’s going to need to be fast. We’re going to need to be strong in our set-piece, so we want to be able to pick a team that will express that and show that and you may well see a few new faces in there(from the Leicester match)."
Meanwhile, scrum-half Caolin Blade says the Connacht squad are keen to make amends for last weekend’s defeat to the Leicester Tigers this coming Sunday.
A win over Stade Francais would qualify the Westerners for the knockout stages of the Heineken Champions Cup for the first time in their history and the Monivea man is eager for the opportunity to play in the later rounds of the tournament.
However, the Irish international insists his – and indeed the team’s – first priority is to ensure their performance is at a high level, and then the result, he is confident, will follow.
“Yeah, I suppose it’s one day longer to do it. We’d prefer if we were playing on Friday night because everyone is itching to get out there,” he said.
“As I said the longer little bit of time kind of gives us time to reflect and then we can start this week fresh.
“Look, we’re going over there to win, we’re going over there to, as you said, get higher in the table, but it’s all about the performance and the result will follow after that.”
Despite the reversal against the Tigers, Blade insists that Connacht can learn a lot from the 29-28 loss and from the mentality the English Premiership table-toppers showed.
The 27-year-old is confident that the lessons learned from the round three clash last Saturday afternoon can be applied successfully by the Westerners in Paris on Sunday.
“I think one thing they did really well when I look back at it, is they stuck to exactly what they were doing and their rugby DNA and they stuck to it and they ground out the win.
“I think we need to have confidence in ourselves, in our coaches and have confidence in our players and just be an eighty-minute team.”
