No doom or gloom around Connacht despite travails as they prepare for New Year’s Day battle with Munster

It’s just over a decade since that day when he helped his side to a victory against Harlequins to snap a 13-game losing streak.

“We’re waiting for someone to give us the trophy,” he smiled, with simmering relief.

Now part of the coaching staff out west, he is a rugged enough survivor of many a bleak day to know that his side’s current miserable run – five defeats in a row – cannot possibly be extended for so long.

For one thing, a glance at injury-ravaged Munster’s teamsheet ahead of their Galway date on Monday should stiffen their New Year resolution to put things right.

So too the acknowledgement that their current travails will not condemn them to an extended lapse in purgatory, just as their illuminating opening, including a notable Glasgow scalp, perhaps laid a false trail of crumbs when predicting their progress.

New head coach Peter Wilkins, such an eminently practical man, retains the same sanguine suave air regardless of fluctuating fortune.

After all, he has been there before, alongside his former boss, Andy Friend, who helmed a side who were equally capable of stretching an improbable number of losses together.

One can now predict a Connacht collapse every season; the only wonder is when it may happen; last year, it occurred at the start of the campaign, two years ago, it also coincided with the festive period.

It might prompt a question about whether such alarming slumps are a matter for the mind, as much as the underperforming bodies.

Wilkins, however accepting of the query, is dismissive of its principal charge.

“It’s a fair question to ask in terms of the run of games to have that tendency,” he replies, also pointing out that his side are capable of stringing together a series of wins, a factor that arguably supports the enquirer rather more than the respondent. No matter.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘psychological hole’ or ‘depths of despair’ in that sense. There is a run of results but certainly nothing in the playing group to say psychologically they are in a hole and are struggling to get out of it. And they would say the same thing.

“What I would say is that we’ve played some pretty strong teams. The majority of the games we have lost we have done so narrowly. And when you do play teams such as Saracens, Bordeaux and Leinster, you want to win.

“But with the quality of those teams, all it does is shine a spotlight on areas of your game that aren’t there yet, areas that need a huge improvement.

“So from the Saracens game, one of the big things we learned was the quality of how we exited from our own territory when kicking the ball. And not just the structure in setting ourself up to kick, but also the chase and the organisation of the chase.

“That’s something you can get away with against some of the teams against whom we’ve won, or some of the games we lost.

“And a quality team like Saracens, who are very strong in those aspects of the game, not only shine a spotlight on what we’re not doing well, we learn from them because they do it so well.

So there are aspects of our game we are feeding in and building as we go. But there is not a psychological problem there in terms of either a lack of faith or a lack of motivation. It is certainly tough, that is professional sport.

“You have to keep finding ways to get better. Results will level out throughout the season and we will deserve to be where we finish at the end of it.”