By Mavrick
March 3 2007

On a wet night in Galway, Connacht came away with a much needed four points despite three late changes to the starting fifteen. Tries from Adrian Flavin and Matt Lacey helped seal a win, which almost eluded the home side. It wasn't pretty. Neither side will look back at this game as their best performance of the season. And how Connacht were made to dig deep for their first Magners League win in five months.

You couldn't help but feel sorry for the Borders. They had been in front twice. They took the only two chances that they had. They were 10-6 to the good at half-time. John Hearty knocked on just in the Connacht half. Winger Dougie Flockhart collected a fly-hack forward and raced over from the Connacht 10-metre line for the opening try. Mark McHugh had given Connacht a 6-0 lead from two very well struck penalties. But Connacht would fail to get on the scoreboard for the next 40 minutes of the first half.

Connacht finally got the try they deserved on the hour mark when one of the finds of the season Adrian Flavin crossed the white at the back of a Connacht maul with McHugh converting. With 20 minutes still to play, Connacht took their foot off the gas, and Nick De Luca ran between McHugh and Williams, to split the Connacht defense. He offloaded to Townsend who had stayed in the move well to put the visitors back in the lead with 10 minutes left.

Though this score came completely against the run of play, the crowd seemed just as frustrated as the players. The strains of "We'll win again, don't know where, don't know when..." was eminating from the stand. But the belief that Connacht we capable of winning this game, never left the 1250 strong crowd. Gavin Williams was held up just short of the line after David Gannon had made great yards off a superb line. And in was Gannon again, who offloaded over a tackler to Matt Lacey whose touch down chalked up Connacht's seventh win in nine league meetings with the Borders.

The Supporters Club would like to wish a swift recovery to the Reivers' injured prop Ed Kalman, who was taken to hospital towards the end of the first half.

The scorers:
For Connacht:
Tries: Flavin, Lacey
Cons: McHugh, Warwick
Pens: McHugh 2
For Border Reivers:
Tries: Flockhart, Townsend
Cons: Law 2
Pens: Law

The teams:
Connacht:
15 David Slemen, 14 Darren Yapp, 13 John Hearty, 12 Mark McHugh (c), 11 Daniel Riordan, 10 Paul Warwick, 9 Conor O'Loughlin, 8 Colm Rigney, 7 Ray Ofisa, 6 John Muldoon, 5 Andrew Farley, 4 David Gannon, 3 Stephen Knoop, 2 Adrian Flavin, 1 Brett Wilkinson
Replacements:
16 Conor Muldoon, 17 Ray Hogan, 18 Michael Swift, 19 Matt Lacey, 20 Chris Keane, 21 Peter Durcan, 22 Gavin Williams.

Border Reivers:
15 Stuart Moffat, 14 Dougie Flockhart, 13 Ben MacDougall, 12 Nick De Luca, 11 Garry Law, 10 Gregor Townsend, (c), 9 Rob Chrystie, 8 Scott Forrest, 7 Andy Miller, 6 Scott Newlands, 5 John Dalziel, 4 Opeta Palepoi, 3 Bruce Douglas, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Ed Kalman
Replacements:
16 Steve Scott, 17 Bruce McNeil, 18 Mark Lee, 19 Richie Vernon, 20 Calum Cusiter, 21 Steve Jones, 22 Bryan Rennie

Referee: Phil Fear (Wales)
Touch judges: Dermot Moloney (Ireland), Peter Roche (Ireland)
Assessor: Jim Irvine (Ireland)