Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread.

.ak

.ak wrote: »

Nice team but considering injures I'd like to see....

1. Van Der Merwe
2. Strauss
3. White
4. Browne
5. Toner
6. McLoughlin
7. Jennings (capt)
8. Auva'a

9. Boss
10. Madigan
11. Carr
12. O'Shea
13. Macken
14. Conway (LR said possible, if not Hudson)
15. Nacewa

16. Dundon 17. McGrath 18. Hagan 19. Flanagan 20. Gilsenan/Ryan 21. Cooney 22. Reid 23. Marsh

Changes bolded.

totallegend wrote: »

Team for tomorrow is out, massive night for Colm O'Shea:

15: Isa Nacewa
14: Darren Hudson
13: Brendan Macken
12: Colm O'Shea
11: Fionn Carr
10: Ian Madigan
9: Isaac Boss

1: Heinke van der Merwe
2: Richardt Strauss
3: Nathan White
4: Damian Browne
5: Devin Toner
6: Kevin McLaughlin CAPTAIN
7: Shane Jennings
8: Leo Auva'a

REPLACEMENTS:

16: Tom Sexton
17: Jack McGrath
18: Jamie Hagan
19: Mark Flanagan
20: Jordi Murphy
21: John Cooney
22: Noel Reid
23: Andrew Boyle

A seriously strong pack there.

I know... I'm scared too.

bamboozle

.ak wrote: »

I know... I'm scared too.

you got the captain wrong...

bamboozle

Deleted User wrote: »

young, eager and talented.

That's all we need to know at this stage.

Can't wait to see the difference between the starting tight 5 and the subs, hopefully there'll be little to no difference in ability.

i've seen him play a fair bit with clontarf, he's a 12 similar to D'arcy, about 5'10, well built (but still needs to put on 4 or 5 kilos) great strength and power, good defence and strong passing & kicking game.

this will be a serious step up for him and playing alongside an inexperienced 13 wont help, although they've played together a bit for the A's.

roycon

collie oshea is like a slightly faster and slightly bigger omalley. used to be a scrum half and outhalf when he was younger. won an sct with tom sexton and michael keating.hes a great passer and defender but maybe he could do with being bigger and breaking more tackles.

CIARAN_BOYLE

14 point lead in the Pro 12 sure Ospreys have a game in hand but its still a damn impressive lead. While the schedule contains a few tough away trips I think Leinster are pretty much a lock for home final should they win the semi

Scarlets (H) 6N
Warriors (A) 6N
Aironi (A) 6N
Ospreys (H)
Munster (A)
Edinburgh (H)
Ulster (A)
Dragons (A)

durkadurka

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

14 point lead in the Pro 12 sure Ospreys have a game in hand but its still a damn impressive lead. While the schedule contains a few tough away trips I think Leinster are pretty much a lock for home final should they win the semi

Scarlets (H) 6N
Warriors (A) 6N
Aironi (A) 6N
Ospreys (H)
Munster (A)
Edinburgh (H)
Ulster (A)
Dragons (A)

Yeah Glasgow away looks like the only nasty game during the 6n.
Aironi wiull be without loads of players and Scarlets wont do much in RDS next week.

Should give us enough for that tricky run in where we could easily lose a couple.

[Jackass]

4 tricky away games. Glasgow wont be as affected by us by 6 nations, and firhill / scotland is an awful and tough destination, never easy to win in Italy, and ulster and especially munster away will be extremely difficult debies, very tough home game v ospreys and dragons away, last game of the regular season, nothing to lose and in party pooping mood....

Scarlets and Edinburgh at home we should win, no excuses, the rest are all very tough games.

Keep the heads lads, we're not there yet.

Clegg

Last night was the first time in a while that I wasn't at the RDS and I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't make it.

Was anyone else impressed with Brendan Macken? This was the best I've seen him play for Leinster. I can see where the hype is coming from. He was solid in defence and made 2 very good breaks. It was an impressive performance for an inexperienced centre in a team missing about 10 first team players.

He was pretty average at the start of the season but he was playing out of position at 12 for a few of those games. He's definitely a much better 13. I can see why some of my mates rate him so highly.

funky penguin

Missed this because of it being during the week (not to mention a 4am kick off for me!).

Dammit, it looks like I missed a good showing from Leinster. What were the main highlights? Did Madigan show any game control/kicking? How did the two centres fair?

.ak

funky penguin wrote: »

Missed this because of it being during the week (not to mention a 4am kick off for me!).

Dammit, it looks like I missed a good showing from Leinster. What were the main highlights? Did Madigan show any game control/kicking? How did the two centres fair?

Mads had a great day at the office. Delivered some delicious long, cut-outs to the wings that set up a few tries. Scored one of his trademark inside-step tries. But most impressively his kicking from hand was sublime. He added the distance of his place kicking to his tactical kicking and found some serious yardage.

O'Shea was solid. Not as good as he was against Pontypridd for the B&I quarter, but still very good and looked promising. Most importantly he didn't crawl into a shell because of the occasion. Macken was just sublime. He linked up well with Isa and Hudson one more than one occasion.

Was mostly impressed by Reid and Cooney when they came on. They've transferred their form from the B&I cup into the senior team and at the end of the game they looked like the senior players coming off the bench. Some serious skills on display.

funky penguin

Cheers .ak! Might see if I can find highlights later.

Man I can't wait till I get back on Irish time......words cannot describe how much I miss the RDS.

iamjenko

Highlights should be up on the leinsterrugby.ie site later!

chancer12

For what it's worth Hook now thinks Mads is a serious contendor for the Ireland 10 jersey! Recommends Joe get a kicking coach to have him 'kick his butt off' to compete for the jersey. Now, he did have a great match and he's getting better with each outing but don't we have enough hassle with the Jonny v ROG saga without throwing someone else into it? Did agree with his comment 'tho that 'Nacewa is a class act' - he was electric last night.

totallegend

All season, I've been in agreement with Joe's apparent opinion that the best back three is:
15: Kearney
14: Nacewa
11: Fitzgerald

But after watching Isa very closely last night, I wonder should he reconsider moving him back to FB? I know you have to put it in the context of the opposition last night, but his reading of the game, his positioning, getting involved in absolutely everything; it almost seems like a waste having him out on the wing.
The only problem then is we're short a right-wing in Horgan's absence, not sure how well R Kearney would play there.

Let's play with two full backs

profitius

Whats the story with Eamonn Sheridan? Is he injured all the time or just fallen out of favour?

molloyjh

profitius wrote: »

Whats the story with Eamonn Sheridan? Is he injured all the time or just fallen out of favour?

We were just talking about him last night. He got badly injured in the pre-season game against NH but we haven't heard any word on him in a while. The talk early in the season was that he was due back around January.

.ak

Yeah. He played against Treviso last year and had a good game if I can remember correctly. Think I heard rumour of him committing to studies as well, not sure tho.

durkadurka

The leinster supporteres club facebooked this morning saying that the Munster away tickets were released today but I cant find any reference to them on the web site - ( I'm a season ticket holder) - anyone any info?

tolosenc

profitius wrote: »

Whats the story with Eamonn Sheridan? Is he injured all the time or just fallen out of favour?

Injury. He's a 12 in the modern Welsh mold. If we could get him up and playing, he could be the long term replacement to D'arcy.

CatFromHue

durkadurka wrote: »

The leinster supporteres club facebooked this morning saying that the Munster away tickets were released today but I cant find any reference to them on the web site - ( I'm a season ticket holder) - anyone any info?

An email was sent around yesterday about it. It was from tickets@leinsterrugby.ie check your spam folder it might be in there.

.ak

durkadurka wrote: »

The leinster supporteres club facebooked this morning saying that the Munster away tickets were released today but I cant find any reference to them on the web site - ( I'm a season ticket holder) - anyone any info?

You should've got a mail with the link in your email? I did. Bought my tickets already... Not many left, and they're all single tickets!

durkadurka

Unbelievable - my work email seems to have blocked them - got my buddy to mail his to my gmail account - then my gmail smam blocked it too.


got there in the end after considerable drama......

.ak

durkadurka wrote: »

Unbelievable - my work email seems to have blocked them - got my buddy to mail his to my gmail account - then my gmail smam blocked it too.


got there in the end after considerable drama......

Here's hoping there'll be another good leinster contingent there. Always great craic in Thomond, it's my favorite away fixture. Hope we get the result this year tho.

.ak

Also, speaking of Munster... Looks like the Ruddock deal is a no-go.

Source

totallegend

.ak wrote: »

Also, speaking of Munster... Looks like the Ruddock deal is a no-go.

Sweet, is that the first official confirmation that there was an offer made?

.ak

totallegend wrote: »

Sweet, is that the first official confirmation that there was an offer made?

As far as I can tell... I only heard rumors of it here.

durkadurka

.ak wrote: »

Here's hoping there'll be another good leinster contingent there. Always great craic in Thomond, it's my favorite away fixture. Hope we get the result this year tho.

I could only get in the north terrace -did you do better than that?

.ak

durkadurka wrote: »

I could only get in the north terrace -did you do better than that?

I get my usual seats in the west stand. Great view, and more to the point very accessible bar! Also the OLSC same day return bus leaves 45 minutes after the whistle and they park near the west stand so it makes sense. But it looks like all the Leinster fans will be pretty spread out as usual.. Hopefully we make some noise!

ktulu123

durkadurka wrote: »

I could only get in the north terrace -did you do better than that?

Myself and two others are in the north terrace too. Looking on Leinsterfans a good few of us are in the north terrace.