PAT Lam has accepted that a number of his Connacht players were “not smart” to track a stolen laptop down to a Galway housing scheme. But, at the same time, the head coach of the Irish province insisted he was pleased to see that his players support each other off the field as well as on.
The laptop in question, belonging to centre Robbie Henshaw and containing some of his academic work, went missing after his car was broken into early last week. In a now-deleted post on social media, Henshaw warned that his team-mate Bundee Aki was on the case. “To whoever stole my bag, I hope you find my economics notes useful reading,” he wrote. “I’m getting my mate Bundee Aki to investigate and knock your block off.”
Members of the Connacht squad traced the laptop using an app, and the day after the theft, Aki and at least one other team-mate confronted the person in possession of it. He was reported to have said that he had bought the laptop in good faith but would return it to Henshaw, and as the dispute became heated the Garda turned up and the rugby players left.
Lam declined to say whether any of his players had been disciplined for the incident, but offered qualified support for the spirit behind their action. “It’s good to see that the boys look out for each other on and off the field,” he said. “It wasn’t a smart thing to do and the boys know that. That's probably all I have got to say on it, really.”
Lam is expected to be in demand after taking Connacht to the PRO12 play-offs for the first time, and despite being under contract until 2018 he refused to rule himself out of the vacancy at Bath, hinting that there would be ways of getting released if necessary. “I'm in a job,” he said. “I know there’s clauses and all that stuff, but ultimately if I look too far ahead you've all sorts going on. We’re in a fickle job, it’s professional rugby, and you don't know what's around the corner.”
Lam expects Glasgow to play better in Saturday’s semi-final at the Sportsground than they did in the last game of the regular season, which saw them lose 14-7. But he is confident that his own team can also improve on their performance and progress to the final at Murrayfield on Saturday week.
“It’s the biggest game in our history and one we’re all excited by,” he added. “We’ve had a lot of big games, we’ve broken history, and the biggest thing for us is to focus on the way to win games.
“We’re prepared whatever the conditions are, but we have to fire shots. It’s no point in being safely, safely. We have to score points, and to do that you have to have something up your sleeve and we’ll have that all right.
“We’ve overachieved in what we’ve done, to be in this situation and play this sort of rugby. We have to complete the week as normal. We haven’t done anything special - we didn’t go to a camp or anything like that.
“I’ve always said we don’t want to be known as the team who kicks everything. You have to have a plan, and it’s up to the players to execute.
“In every game we’ve added something different. Everyone analyses everyone, so you have to change it up. I have no doubt Glasgow will be better, that Gregor Townsend will have something up his sleeve for us.”
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