Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread.

thomond2006

There's no point to Hagan going back to Connacht.

With Nathan White there next season, Hagan would be moving from one bench to another, unless Leinster are looking to sign another prop which could relegate Hagan to 3rd choice.

porterbelly

Hagan was happy in the Connacht environment and worked well with McFarland.

He's supposed to be pretty upset with the signing of Michael Bent, he thought he was in line to get more of a chance next season

If he came back he'd get plenty of action, McFarland really brought him on and would be keen to push him on again.

thomond2006

porterbelly wrote: »

Hagan was happy in the Connacht environment and worked well with McFarland.

He's supposed to be pretty upset with the signing of Michael Bent, he thought he was in line to get more of a chance next season

If he came back he'd get plenty of action, McFarland really brought him on and would be keen to push him on again.

Completely forgot about Michael Bent joining!

WeeBushy

porterbelly wrote: »

Hagan was happy in the Connacht environment and worked well with McFarland.

He's supposed to be pretty upset with the signing of Michael Bent, he thought he was in line to get more of a chance next season

If he came back he'd get plenty of action, McFarland really brought him on and would be keen to push him on again.

Where did you hear that? It would sound about right though, he wouldn't want to stay on as a 3rd choice player for another season. Depends how good Bent is as well. However from a Leinster perspective I don't want to see him go. It would leave us with only two senior tight head props, and with Ross presumably missing large portions of the season it would leave us quite light, particularly as Bent has never played in the NH. As most SH props say when they come up, its quite different here. It's one position where you can't throw in untested youngsters. They need to be brought through slowly.

Clegg

I've been a bit disappointed with Hagan tbh. He hasn't been as impressive with Leinster as he was with Connacht.

He's had opportunities to show his worth but hasn't taken them. It would be silly for him to leave though. Hopefully he'll improve next season.

Tox56

Hagan started well early in the season, but his opportunities became more limited. Hopefully he will start next season well, even if he only proves to be the bridge between Ross and Moore/Furlong/whoever comes through.

Hagz

Meh, hasn't done enough to make you miss him if he does go. Hopefully this Bent lad is good.

shuffol

Is Bent IQ?

Hagz

shuffol wrote: »

Is Bent IQ?

Yeh

[Jackass]

Yeah I'm afraid from what I saw of Hagan this season, there would want to be a super human improvement from him next season in order for him to be kept on.

A shame as he has the size, but his fitness seemed consistantly poor, his scrummaging for a man of his size extremely weak (and yes he had a couple of good games, and that was exactly what kept Buckley knocking around Munster and Ireland for so long even though he was a useless lump).

Given his age etc., I think he's way off the level he needs to be to be in the Leinster squad. I hope he proves all of this wrong, but I'd give him one more season to get it right (as with Carr and his disappointing form this season - very quiet).

Bent is pretty young (around 25, not much older than Hagan), and if he proves superior then Hagan would almost take on a mantal as blocking a path for much younger tightheads coming through, like Furlong, who could benefit from 3 or 4 senior appearences next start, mostly off the bench.

I don't think Ross is as good a tighthead as people think, he's decent, but not destructive or even great, and I think a top quality tighthead and a top quality lock is the missing part to us being the complete package.

Many teams attack our scrum, and get serious rewards. Munster did it in the final last season, Ospreys this season, Northampton last season, Clermont this season etc. It's definitely our weakness, and I hope it gets sorted. Hope Bent becomes first choice and proves to be much stronger than Ross. (who is a bit of a Hayes - always solid, never amazing, and getting weaker with age)

tolosenc

[Jackass] wrote: »

I don't think Ross is as good a tighthead as people think, he's decent, but not destructive or even great, and I think a top quality tighthead and a top quality lock is the missing part to us being the complete package.

This. Along comes an Irish tighthead who can hold up a scrum, and we think he's god's gift. He is a very solid player, and well capable of international rugby, but he could be a lot better.

Mike, if you read this, don't take that the wrong way. I love you.

Tox56

I don't think anyone is fooled into thinking Ross does anything other than lock the scrum, but that's all we need and we are fecked without him. If we were offered another Ross for the next 10 years I'm sure everyone would take it in a heartbeat.

WeeBushy

If we don't keep him on we're very light. With Ross away for long parts of the season we're left with an untested prop as first choice and an academy player as his back up. As Jackass said, Furlong should be getting 3/4 appearances from the bench next season to give him a a taster, not be second choice behind an unknown quantity. That doesn't cut it at the best club in Europe imo.

Hagan hasn't been great, but he has shown signs of promise so we kinda need him atm. Pity we couldn't keep White, I thought he was a great addition to the squad.

irishbucsfan

I would be very disappointed if we don't see Hagan man up and believe in his own ability to beat out Bent. It would be very disappointing to see him run away from the competition. He's in the perfect environment to develop as a prop right now. Working with Feek, sporadic extended playing opportunities etc.

I'd like to see him give it everything next season and if that's not good enough then he always has the escape route of moving down a level and going back to Connacht.

[Jackass]

9 Leinster academy lads started for the Irish U-20 team that beat South Africa and a further 4 came off the bench. Very promising, given it was on their home patch and without doubt the best U20-s win to date.

Best parts being the scrum that not only stood up to the vaunted massive springbok underage packs, but actually got the better of them overall, with two Leinster props in the front row, Coughlan-Murray (the Leinster / Irish Shane Williams to be) playing superbly, and an all Leinster back-row that swarmed them and stopped them from playing.

Sindri

Hagz wrote: »

Meh, hasn't done enough to make you miss him if he does go. Hopefully this Bent lad is good.

Anytime I've seen the Hurricanes scrum this season, it's always been under pressure. And this lad isn't even first choice, only about 11 caps for the Hurricanes.

bamboozle

WeeBushy wrote: »

If we don't keep him on we're very light. With Ross away for long parts of the season we're left with an untested prop as first choice and an academy player as his back up. As Jackass said, Furlong should be getting 3/4 appearances from the bench next season to give him a a taster, not be second choice behind an unknown quantity. That doesn't cut it at the best club in Europe imo.

Hagan hasn't been great, but he has shown signs of promise so we kinda need him atm. Pity we couldn't keep White, I thought he was a great addition to the squad.

Furlong i believe is only a few days too old to play 20's again next season, he needs to be given 18 months at AIL and B&I level to fine tune his technique and work on his conditioning. If he's on the fringes of the Rabo squad by 22 he'll be doing very well.

GerM

[Jackass] wrote: »

I don't think Ross is as good a tighthead as people think, he's decent, but not destructive or even great, and I think a top quality tighthead and a top quality lock is the missing part to us being the complete package.

Many teams attack our scrum, and get serious rewards. Munster did it in the final last season, Ospreys this season, Northampton last season, Clermont this season etc. It's definitely our weakness, and I hope it gets sorted. Hope Bent becomes first choice and proves to be much stronger than Ross. (who is a bit of a Hayes - always solid, never amazing, and getting weaker with age)

Ross isn't absolutely top class but it depends on what you terms as top class. I've seen him hammer plenty of scrums and take them apart in a destructive manner. England in the 6N, Northampton and Clermont last season and Ulster and Cardiff in this season's HEC knock out stages. No prop dominates the opposition scrum in every game as every opponent is very different and requires a different approach. There are very few around at this point in time that are better than Ross at scrum time. NZ, the world champions, were in serious trouble at scrum time on occasion in the WC. Gethin Jenkins, the Grand Slam winning loose head, was taken apart by Ross in the HEC. I would say very few teams attack our scrum when Ross is about and even fewer get anything from it. The times when teams have had some results from our scrum have been due to a patched up front five being on the field or, as seen against Northampton, their standard illegal scrummaging which was sorted out and then destroyed.

Apart from his scrummaging, he has become a solid player around the park. He'll never be spectacular but he's decent around the fringes, makes his tackles and even carries a bit now, far more than John Hayes did in the last 5-7 years of his career. Watch the last moments of the Clermont game and see who was making the tackle on his own line, holding out Clermont, getting under the carrier.

danthefan

He's even grown a pair of hands, had one quality offload in the HEC final for example.

Morf

Ross' inside pass to Kearney that put him through a gap earlier on this season was a sight to behold.

jimbomalley

Morf wrote: »

Ross' inside pass to Kearney that put him through a gap earlier on this season was a sight to behold.

I replayed that one a few times afterwards, lovely hands from the big man

Zzippy

[Jackass] wrote: »

Yeah I'm afraid from what I saw of Hagan this season, there would want to be a super human improvement from him next season in order for him to be kept on.

A shame as he has the size, but his fitness seemed consistantly poor, his scrummaging for a man of his size extremely weak (and yes he had a couple of good games, and that was exactly what kept Buckley knocking around Munster and Ireland for so long even though he was a useless lump).

Given his age etc., I think he's way off the level he needs to be to be in the Leinster squad. I hope he proves all of this wrong, but I'd give him one more season to get it right (as with Carr and his disappointing form this season - very quiet).

Bent is pretty young (around 25, not much older than Hagan), and if he proves superior then Hagan would almost take on a mantal as blocking a path for much younger tightheads coming through, like Furlong, who could benefit from 3 or 4 senior appearences next start, mostly off the bench.

I don't think Ross is as good a tighthead as people think, he's decent, but not destructive or even great, and I think a top quality tighthead and a top quality lock is the missing part to us being the complete package.

Many teams attack our scrum, and get serious rewards. Munster did it in the final last season, Ospreys this season, Northampton last season, Clermont this season etc. It's definitely our weakness, and I hope it gets sorted. Hope Bent becomes first choice and proves to be much stronger than Ross. (who is a bit of a Hayes - always solid, never amazing, and getting weaker with age)

Last year there were comments made about Hagan's lack of fitness at Connacht, and how it reflected badly on the Connacht fitness coaching staff. I haven't seen a huge improvement this year, though I suppose he hasn't had enough rugby to judge.

From my impression of watching Hagan at Connacht over a couple of years, I think he was his own worst enemy - he's far more mobile around the pitch than the likes of Ross, or most TH props, and gets through a lot more work both in defence and attack. Doing all that had him shagged out after 60 minutes so he looked unfit and unable to close out games.

To me, while Ross has improved in open play, there is a lot of the John Hayes "hang around rucks and look busy" about him in open play - I wouldn't have anyone else there for scrums, but if he got through the work that Hagan can in open play I think he wouldn't last the hour either.

As for scrummaging, Hagan was excellent at this for Connacht, playing against the same teams in the Rabo that he is at Leinster, and managing very well against them. Since he didn't play much HEC this year he can't really be judged on scrummaging against higher level opposition.

While I would love to see him playing for Connacht again, with White and Loughney here I can't see it happening.

Tox56

I'd suggest the reason we haven't seen much of Hagan is because they are working on his fitness

CatFromHue

Denis Hickie was on the Colman at Large show on Newstalk 106 last Wednesday night. He's working in Canada for a renewables company at the moment.

They were having a panel discussion about alcohol and it got whiny so I stopped listening. In the few mins that I did listen he didn't talk about rugby or what he's up to at the moment....just about alcohol and Canada life.

GerM

CatFromHue wrote: »

Denis Hickie was on the Colman at Large show on Newstalk 106 last Wednesday night. He's working in Canada for a renewables company at the moment.

They were having a panel discussion about alcohol and it got whiny so I stopped listening. In the few mins that I did listen he didn't talk about rugby or what he's up to at the moment....just about alcohol and Canada life.

In fairness, it's a debate and discussion show so I wouldn't expect for them to break into a discussion on rugby especially given it's on right after OTB.

Zzippy

CatFromHue wrote: »

Denis Hickie was on the Colman at Large show on Newstalk 106 last Wednesday night. He's working in Canada for a renewables company at the moment.

They were having a panel discussion about alcohol and it got whiny so I stopped listening. In the few mins that I did listen he didn't talk about rugby or what he's up to at the moment....just about alcohol and Canada life.

What was he saying about alcohol?

shuffol

Zzippy wrote: »

What was he saying about alcohol?

Something about drinking Canada Dry.

ormond lad

Hype710 wrote: »

Who is Dooley? There's Reilly and Merrey from the U20s too and I don't know whether they will be offered Academy deals as there is already a bit of a backlog there and Byrne likely to go in straight from school. If not it would be great if they could pick up deals at the other provinces.

Peter Dooley from Birr. Played on quite a strong Birr Roscrea combined u19 side this season.

Hagz wrote: »

Good point. Slipped my mind

Peter Dooley from Offaly. He's coming through the youths system, plays with Birr. Captained the u-18 club side this year. He's a LH. Should be on the u20 side the year after next. Obviously it's a bit extreme to be discussing guys who're still playing u-18 level but there's a lot of noise being made about him and just emphasises the talent that is pouring through in terms of props.

The Byrne twins are in the academy next season but not Reilly+Merrey. They're probably in the sub-academy.

Dooley is underage for 19s in september but could easily be involved with the 20s.
He started on irish youths 2 years running and had done some training with academy/sub academy during the year. Very good player

TomLamp

Is Tadgh Furlong at 119kgs the biggest Irish tighthead? Hes only 19..

CIARAN_BOYLE

TomLamp wrote: »

Is Tadgh Furlong at 119kgs the biggest Irish tighthead? Hes only 19..

Buckley has a couple of stone over him