Paul Boyle hat-trick leads Connacht to win over Benetton
Paul Boyle celebrated his first time captaining Connacht with a hat-trick of tries in their 31-14 Guinness PRO14 win over Benetton at the Sportsground. Backed by a very strong wind, Connacht led 24-7 at half-time thanks to number eight Boyle’s brace and further scores from wingers Peter Sullivan and Alex Wootton.
Prop Filippo Alongi replied for Benetton, albeit that Tommaso Benevenuti’s subsequent sin-binning saw his side leak two tries.
With their bonus point in the bag, Boyle sealed his hat-trick in the 53rd minute as the black-clad hosts moved into second place in Conference B. Benetton had a late consolation score from captain Dewaldt Duvenage.
There were some bright moments early on for Benetton, suitably attired in an eye-catching all-yellow kit, but their scrum quickly started leaking penalties.
Caolin Blade was held up before Boyle crashed over from a five-metre scrum for his 13th-minute opener, converted by Conor Fitzgerald.
Backs and forwards then combined in a 23rd-minute lineout drive to propel Sullivan over the line for his first try for the Irish province.
The Italians closed the deficit to five points soon after, Ratuva Tavuyara reacting impressively to a partially blocked kick before Marco Barbini carried forcefully and Alongi duly drove over from a few metres out.
The try, converted by Ian Keatley, stood in spite of a post-score lunge by Benvenuti on a prone Gavin Thornbury. The TMO review highlighted him leading with his shoulder.
The Benetton centre’s yellow card was hugely costly for the visitors, as Connacht went wide to the left and Sullivan’s well-timed pass sent Wootton over on the half-hour mark.
Fly-half Fitzgerald was able to convert Boyle’s second score of the night, close to the interval. A blindside gap appeared from a scrum and the deceptively-quick Connacht skipper evaded Callum Braley to establish a 17-point advantage.
Despite struggling initially with their discipline on the restart, Connacht almost scored from a quick-witted counter attack. TMO Joy Neville ruled that Eoghan Masterson was held up.
Nonetheless, from the resulting scrum, Connacht wore down the Benetton defence and player-of-the-match Boyle, ably supported by two team-mates, powered over from close range to make it 31-7.
A promising Fitzgerald break was the highlight of a final quarter that was scoreless until his opposite number Duvenage went over from a quickly-taken 77th-minute penalty. The South African also converted.
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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