Dragons v Connacht

[An Tarbh]

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Dragons v Connacht</div>

Connacht travel to Newport knowing this is a must win for them to have any chance of making the final playoff spot for the HEC.

They got half the job done by picking up a bp win when the sides last met but it'll be a much tougher task to repeat that performance given the likes of Bath and Toulouse failed to get the full haul there this season.

A bp win for the Dragons will pile the pressure on the Scarlets but with games remaining against Edinburgh and Leinster maximum points may not be enough to avoid the playoff at the end of May.

Home win but without the bp.

 

[An Tarbh]

only saw the last half hour of this one but the Dragons will be kicking themselves. What an utterly retarded decision to take their last kick at goal, had they gone for the corner they would have had a much better chance of getting the bonus point bearing in mind they were 17 points up at the time. Could that point be the difference between the playoff and qualifying automatically for Europe.

 

[Thingimubob]

Final score - Dragons 27 - 14 Connacht

One of the worst refereed games all seasons with 3 very harsh yellow cards for not so serious offenses, then complete ignorance of actual cynical play. Dragons deserved the win, but looked very rusty (but you'd expect that after so few games recently) and didn;t take their chances well enough to get a bonus point. Still a very interesting battle at the bottom between them, the Blues and the Scarlets, especially with the Dragons playing at the Arms Park 3 days after the Blues v Leicester HEC Semi Final, so no doubt they'll be targeting that game. After this weekend I think the Blues are up to 7th, with the Scarlets dropping to 8th and the Dragons staying at 9th. I'm hoping that the Blues cme out on top considering they've got 4 home games left (vs Dragons, Munster, Edinburgh and Scarlets) but they may have their eye on the Heineken so everything not quite certainn at the moment.

 

[An Tarbh]

Scarlets stay seventh due to the number of wins.

 

[MunsterMan]

Referee was a f***wit, Dragons definitely benefited more from him though, there was one stage in the first half where Jonny O'Connor got over a tackled dragon and was trying to pull the ball free, A dragons player who was not the tackled player was pulling the ball back into the ruck. I spent 5 seconds waiting for the ref to give Connacht a penalty then i though the Dragon would be binned for such a blatant stupid offense, and NGD were awarded a penalty and Connacht given a final warning :huh: :huh:

 

[Thingimubob]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MunsterMan @ Apr 26 2009, 09:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Referee was a f***wit, Dragons definitely benefited more from him though, there was one stage in the first half where Jonny O'Connor got over a tackled dragon and was trying to pull the ball free, A dragons player who was not the tackled player was pulling the ball back into the ruck. I spent 5 seconds waiting for the ref to give Connacht a penalty then i though the Dragon would be binned for such a blatant stupid offense, and NGD were awarded a penalty and Connacht given a final warning :huh: :huh:[/b]

Yupp, he was utter crap. Duffy's yellow was incredably harsh too, I mean fair enough Duffy had the ball ripped from him, but he looked stuck from what I could see. Gomer-Davies's yellow card was strange too, I mean holding on in attack is hardly cynical play. But then when a connacht player blatantly grabed the ball from offside (and off his feet I think) in his own 22 when he Dragons were looking for their 4th try, he didn;t bat an eyelid after giving the penalty. That was much more of a case for a yellow card and any of the 3 that had come before.
Also, agree with Tarbh, the choice to go for the kick at goal was baffling.