The start to this season for Connacht resembled Cinderella trying to get her hinny out of the palace and clumsily back into the carriage as it turned into a pumpkin after enjoying themselves too much . Having endured an awful start to the Pro12 season, they’ve finally gotten momentum with back to back wins. The win over Ulster, their perennial bogey team will have confidence through the roof for Pat Lam’s side as the Champions Cup rolls into town this weekend. Now clearly this competition was better when it was the Heineken Cup. It wasn’t squeezed into small windows in the calendar, Irish teams were winning it all the time and you didn’t need to fork out a small fortune on two different sports packages. If you are a Virgin Media customer who has not snagged tickets to the match this weekend, you're out of luck as you cannot even subscribe to the channel that covers the game. You’ll need to get yourself down to the local or better yet Forster Street for the designated Fanzone. After putting up the season of their lives to qualify, it’s time we all enjoyed the actual tournament now the team qualified on merit.
Toulouse are historically the biggest name in European Rugby but with the French game awash with money and god knows what else in the medical rooms, other French sides have roared past them. Who could ever forget Connacht’s epic victory away from home in 2013. They did however lose heavily at home two weeks later by 37 points to 9. Victory may seem improbable with Toulouse blessed with talent like Maxime Médard, Luke McAlister and Gaël Fickou but suddenly against Ulster, Connacht showed their zip from last season. The ingredients of a classic are there. Pool 2 is seen as a two horse race between Wasps at 1/2 and Toulouse at 13/8. Connacht are 18/1 with Zebre the no hopers at 500/1. Overall the betting sees this tournament between Saracens, Toulon, Racing Metro and Wasps. The fact the best of the Irish, Leinster are as big as 33/1 shows the gaps money and lack of new talent here is creating. Connacht are 200/1 outright.
Hurling Final
Gort and St Thomas do battle this Sunday in Pearse Stadium. Weather will be a huge factor as a wet soft day plays in Gort’s strengths. It’s been an incredible season to get St Thomas here. Key retirements were seen as the likely end to their challenge with Paddy Power making them 16/1 shots back in July but an amazing victory over Portumna and Loughrea mean they enter Sunday’s match as 5/6 shots to lift the cup the same price as Gort. I can’t get the fact out of my head though that both Loughrea and Portumna who of course were missing Joe Canning underperformed on the day rather than St Thomas were excellent.
Gort defensively looked suspect against Craughwell in the semi final but lessons can be learned there and I’d expect Gerard O'Donoghue will have to start after an excellent performance. Overall I’m surprised the bookmakers are making it so tight. On my own tissue, I’d have Gort down as 8/13 favourites so at Evens in normal time, they look a decent bet.
