IF CONNACHT ARE going to top off their best-ever season with a trophy, they’ll have to overcome their provincial rivals who have been the standard setters in Ireland for much of the last decade.
Pat Lam says playing Leinster is the “ultimate final” for the western province.
Lam is happy Connacht are going up against the ‘benchmark’ Pro12 team. Source: James Crombie/INPHO
He was joking last weekend when stating that, having been handed Scotland’s home changing room at Murrayfield on Saturday, Connacht will be “playing Ireland on the other side” but there’s a strong hint of truth in there.
Certainly the expectation is that when Joe Schmidt announces his Ireland squad to travel to South Africa this afternoon, there will once again be a considerably larger number of Leinster players in it than the representations of the other provinces.
Add to their array of Test stars Leinster’s history of four Pro12 titles and three Heineken Cups and it’s clear why Lam says this is the greatest test Connacht could have faced for Saturday’s final.
“They set the benchmark. If you want to test yourself against the best, and we talk to the boys constantly about their rugby education and playing at that highest level and Test matches, here’s a chance to test ourselves against one of the best in Europe over the last ten years.”
There may well be a number of Connacht players in Saturday’s final motivated by having been left out of Schmidt’s South African party.
Lam believes that the best way for his Irish players to keep challenging Schmidt’s selection decision-making is by ensuring that they continue to perform and win.
Connacht trained in the Galway sun yesterday. Source: James Crombie/INPHO
“I think getting anybody in that [Ireland] team is fantastic,” says Lam. “When you play well for your team you promote yourself and we’ve seen that in the Six Nations when we had seven in a training squad.
“That’s all the boys can do and control – and this is what we talk about all the time. If you think ‘I want to be in Ireland and pick me,’ you ain’t going to make it.
“The number is not important to me, it’s around the fact that there are guys on that selection table. That’s up to Joe and his selectors to make their call.”
Ahead of Saturday’s final in Edinburgh, Connacht will have been poring over the footage of Leinster’s impressive semi-final win over Ulster at the RDS, when Leo Cullen’s men hit something of a peak in terms of their aggression and accuracy.
There was nothing extravagant about their game plan but the likes of Johnny Sexton, Jamie Heaslip and Jack McGrath kicked brilliantly, slammed rucks, or carried powerfully and collectively Leinster made visits to the opposition 22 pay off.
“That is the challenge,” says Lam of that Leinster performance, “that is the thing that is exciting. We were really impressed with what Leinster did. The whole country was and everyone is talking about it.
“That is what makes it exciting because it’s like right, that is the level, fellas, that is where we need to be at.
“If we don’t have that understanding of how we need to play and if we don’t bring the preparation for it, we will get beaten off the park.”
Shane O’Leary and Craig Ronaldson at training. Source: James Crombie/INPHO
Going by recent evidence, Connacht fans shouldn’t be too concerned about their side’s preparation. The westerners’ repeated focus on their ‘systems and processes’ mean they have managed potentially pressurised situations well so far this season.