And so 12 were reduced to the ‘Final Four’ in the 2016 Guinness PRO 12.
Going into the final weekend of the PRO 12v it was already confirmed that Glasgow Warriors, Connacht and Leinster had made it into the playoffs (though, at the time, not necessarily in that order) and by Saturday afternoon, an impressive 46-26 win away to the Ospreys had guaranteed the final qualifier place for Ulster. Results earlier in the day had determined the make-up of this final four in the race for the play-offs, as fans enjoyed the last round of regular PRO 12 competition.
In Galway, Connacht managed to defeat a 14-man Glasgow to overtake them in the table, their 14-7 win enough to push them up into first–but only temporarily. A good home victory, but they were soon to be displaced as their Irish rivals put 50 points on Treviso in Dublin to leap up to first in their place.
So, when the dust had settled it meant Connacht and Glasgow will in fact have a rematch of Saturday’s clash again in two weeks’ time, while Leinster and Ulster will meet at the RDS Arena in a ‘knockout match’ that has been played many times before. Two tantalizing fixtures are scheduled that will epitomize the quality of the Guinness PRO 12.
Ironically though, on form, it’s probably the two away teams that are looking the best of the final four.
Glasgow, up until their defeat to Connacht on Saturday, had won eight straight games (including wins over Leinster and Ulster) and were looking irresistible with some incredibly slick running rugby. But for Sila Puafisi’s red card, they could easily have won at the Sportsground and snatched a home semi-final themselves.
Meanwhile, Ulster are finding form just at the right time too. Their six-try triumph in Swansea followed a dismantling of semi-final opponents Leinster in Belfast at the start of the month and they’ve also had a recent victory over Connacht too [18-10] Not only is their attack starting to find some real form, but their defence is rock solid too, boasting the second best record in the league having conceded only 29 tries all season (an average of 1.3 per game) Of course, that does not guarantee either side victory in their respective knockout games.
Connacht have been almost unbeatable at the Sportsground all season (only Ulster have emerged victorious from Galway ) and Ulster themselves have a wretched record at the RDS Arena, having only won their once. They’ll also be coming up against the only defence to be better than their own–over the course of the season, Leinster’s try line was only breached 27 times.
It sets up two very interesting match-ups and throws up a lot of questions too.
There will definitely be a lot of intrigue over whether Connacht’s squad, as impressive as they’ve been all season, can deal with the pressure of knockout rugby. Whether Ulster can overcome their ‘Dublin hoodoo’ and replicate their performance against Leo Cullen’s men a few weeks ago; is another pressing question.
But there are questions surrounding Leinster themselves–is their squad good enough right now to win this league?
On paper, even though they’re still away in the semi-final, Glasgow are probably still the very marginal favourites to retain their league trophy but both games are so evenly poised that you would have to be a very brave man right now to bet on the victors. One must assume that both games will come down solely to who performs on the day – and that usually all comes down to ‘who has the more experience’.
Regardless, we have two fantastic games on our hands.
LEINSTER v ULSTER
RDS Arena, Dublin. 20 May, 19:45*CONNACHT v GLASGOW
Sportsground, Galway. 21 May, 20:30*
* All kick-off times are local
“Main photo credit”
