Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread VI: End of the MOC [Revenge of the STH]

thomond2006

Outside of Sexton, is there to be no big name signing? There is certainly space for an NIE player.

Douglas (NIE) - under contract
Gopperth (NIE) - leaving
Te'o (NIE/project) - under contract
Kirchner (NIE) - out of contract

Assuming you release Kirchner (why keep him?) that leaves one NIE and one project (*puke*). Leinster desperately need a number nine, from both a quality and numbers standpoint.

TommyOM

LorMal wrote: »

I think you are setting the bar too low if you're happy with Te'o as our 13. My opinion is that this is too important a position to be allocated to a player who is still in development in Rugby Union.
I have been accused of xenophobia here by some gob****e but the reality is that all of our imported recently players have failed to reach the highest standards. I would include Jimmy G, Kirshner, Douglas, Te'o.
They just don't compare to the likes of Rocky, Isa, Hines, Stan. (I do appreciate we also had a couple of duds over the years)
Surely a NIQ is only worth employing if he is very significantly better than the alternatives available in the club?

He's an investment for the future. We may as well give him the experience now while MOC is in charge and then it will pay dividends when a new coach comes in, Leinster start clicking and Teo has the experience at 13 to be top class.

He already has shown serious ability to exploit gaps, has shown lovely offloading and has run some fantastic lines. From what I can see he has all the skillset to be an incredible 13.

irishbucsfan

thomond2006 wrote: »

Outside of Sexton, is there to be no big name signing? There is certainly space for an NIE player.

Douglas (NIE) - under contract
Gopperth (NIE) - leaving
Te'o (NIE/project) - under contract
Kirchner (NIE) - out of contract

Assuming you release Kirchner (why keep him?) that leaves one NIE and one project (*puke*). Leinster desperately need a number nine.

Well Nacewa will be one by the sounds of it.

Outside of that they were looking for 9s, wouldn't be surprised if they bring one in. Maybe we could also do with a 10 for cover during the WC.

thomond2006

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well Nacewa will be one by the sounds of it.

Outside of that they were looking for 9s, wouldn't be surprised if they bring one in. Maybe we could also do with a 10 for cover during the WC.

If it's Nacewa as a World Cup joker only then he shouldn't be counted. Leinster shouldn't be penalised for supplying two 10s to RWC.

Rory Kockott is going to be available if Castres are relegated.

rrpc

molloyjh wrote: »

Did we suffer mid-season slumps in previous years? I don't recall that at all. We started slowly but that's about it.

The disruption is a factor that we've spoken about quite a lot here tbh. Some refuse to acknowledge it sure, while others place more or less importance on it depending on their viewpoint.

It doesn't excuse that loss to Dragons though. Or even the loss to Scarlets if we're being honest. It has had a huge impact on our season, as have injuries, but there's more to our problems than just that. And while we're providing more players to the Ireland team we also arguably have better depth than ever before. Remember during the 6 Nations we were fielding the likes of:

Bent Strauss Furlong
McCarthy Douglas
Ryan Conan Jenno

Boss Gopperth
Reid Te'o
Fitzgerald Kirchner McFadden

Dundon, Dooley, Burke-Flynn, Denton, VDF, McGrath, Darce, D Kearney

That's still a pretty strong starting XV for the international window and even the bench has some strength to it outside the props. But we got a couple of internationals back for a couple of games too.

When I say slump, I don't necessarily mean we were beaten, especially since there weren't as many first teamers on international duty. However we scraped a lot of single score wins around January/February/March. We've been beaten by Ospreys, Cardiff and Ulster and Aironi came within a score of us in Feb 2011 I think.

Many of the players we fielded during the 6N were released from international camp for those matches, they were obviously needed, but it's not near ideal preparation. The point is that there's a lot of disruption in the squad. We clearly have depth but there's also a lot of chopping and changing. I don't think there's another squad in either the Champions cup or the Pro 12 that have as much disruption to deal with. Injuries would probably account for more.

irishbucsfan

thomond2006 wrote: »

If it's Nacewa as a World Cup joker only then he shouldn't be counted. Leinster shouldn't be penalised for supplying two 10s to RWC.

Rory Kockott is going to be available if Castres are relegated.

Kockott would be fantastic if we could afford hIm.

I'd imagine if they do coax Nacewa up here, and it sounds like they will, then it'll be for at least the season. Maybe I'm wrong on that count.

sydthebeat

yeah a hybrid decent 9 / 10 would be perfect signing.

dare i say a player like piri weepu?
i wonder what Oyonnax are offering him

.ak

LorMal wrote: »

I think you are setting the bar too low if you're happy with Te'o as our 13. My opinion is that this is too important a position to be allocated to a player who is still in development in Rugby Union.
I have been accused of xenophobia here by some gob****e but the reality is that all of our imported recently players have failed to reach the highest standards. I would include Jimmy G, Kirshner, Douglas, Te'o.
They just don't compare to the likes of Rocky, Isa, Hines, Stan. (I do appreciate we also had a couple of duds over the years)
Surely a NIQ is only worth employing if he is very significantly better than the alternatives available in the club?

There's a massive difference between thinking T'eo isn't our best 13/not being happy with him at 13 and hoping he'll leave the country....

sydthebeat

sydthebeat wrote: »

yeah a hybrid decent 9 / 10 would be perfect signing.

dare i say a player like piri weepu?
i wonder what Oyonnax are offering him

absolutely not

Buer

sydthebeat wrote: »

yeah a hybrid decent 9 / 10 would be perfect signing.

dare i say a player like piri weepu?
i wonder what Oyonnax are offering him

Several bakeries.

I'd love if we could get Kockott. He's only 28 (29 in summer), can goal kick well and is someone that can take a huge amount of responsibility at halfback and allow a young outhalf to develop.

The only thing is, if he were to become available, he's very much on the radar of the big French sides who made big efforts to sign him already. He's also involved with the French side and may not want to damage his hopes of selection.

sydthebeat

if we are looking for a 9 as a first teame starter available'ish next season we could do worse than Jimmy Cowan.

I suggested weepu if we were looking for a bencher who could cover 9/10

is it worth investing in a NIQ who will be missing for the RWc and 6N? id suggest not

Buer

We'd probably be looking for someone that would be available all year round, so I'd agree, Kockott is unlikely. Cowan was a good player a few years ago but I don't think we'll be replacing a 34 year old with a 33 year old. He's starting to slow down judging on his performances and game time this season.

It's a tricky position to fill. There are a couple of highly rated scrum halves in South Africa who are fringe players for SA that we could target. It all really is dependent on the Kirchner situation, though. It's looking very likely that Nacewa will replace Gopperth. We'll need another empty slot to get a scrum half in.

thomond2006

Wasn't Jimmy Cowan a flop at Gloucester?

errlloyd

I am happy with T'eo, certainly happier than I'd be without him. I have no idea where wed get a decent scrum half, genia would have been amazeballs.

sydthebeat

Buer wrote: »

We'd probably be looking for someone that would be available all year round, so I'd agree, Kockott is unlikely. Cowan was a good player a few years ago but I don't think we'll be replacing a 34 year old with a 33 year old. He's starting to slow down judging on his performances and game time this season.

It's a tricky position to fill. There are a couple of highly rated scrum halves in South Africa who are fringe players for SA that we could target. It all really is dependent on the Kirchner situation, though. It's looking very likely that Nacewa will replace Gopperth. We'll need another empty slot to get a scrum half in.

as our reserve 10??

lots of unknown unknowns there!!

i wonder would someone like Brad Weber be willing to come up for a few years? hard to see any new SH's break into the all black squad with A smith, TJ, Pulu, Kerr barlow (when back from injury) all vying for places.

Larbre34

LOL @ the 'heights' of Stan

I still remember him hanging out on the wing in Donnybrook for a restart, bitching to us leaning on the rail that he wished he hadn't eaten so much before the game! Ledge.

Podge_irl

sydthebeat wrote: »

as our reserve 10??

I'm guessing he means replacing the NIE spot. Though obviously there is a decent chance Nacewa would cover 10 during the RWC but that didn't go well when he hadn't been out of the game for 2 years...

CatFromHue

molloyjh wrote: »

Watching Against The Head here and they reckon Matt O'Connor is doing a good job. Not in the top 4 and likely not going to make the top 4. Lost at home to the Dragons. 8 points from 20 during the 6 Nations. They are aware of these things right?

And I'm sick of Daire O'Briens sneering condescension when it comes to fans/supporters. His attitude is appalling.

I watched it on the Player yesterday and I didn't think they came across so positive on MOC as you mentioned. They did criticise the way they played against Bath but also mentioned the amount of guys away with Ireland.

Lenihan, Pope, and Quinlan were on and I thought overall it wasn't bad. They do have a tendency to interrupt each other mid sentence though which makes it a bit messy.

Not sure if they're 100% right about the A team players too either.

---

Also posters sayinng that MOC isn't getting criticism from the mainstream press is wrong. Franno is throwing a few digs and even Tony Ward was critical of the team in his article yesterday.

molloyjh

CatFromHue wrote: »

I watched it on the Player yesterday and I didn't think they came across so positive on MOC as you mentioned. They did criticise the way they played against Bath but also mentioned the amount of guys away with Ireland.

Lenihan, Pope, and Quinlan were on and I thought overall it wasn't bad. They do have a tendency to interrupt each other mid sentence though which makes it a bit messy.

Not sure if they're 100% right about the A team players too either.

---

Also posters sayinng that MOC isn't getting criticism from the mainstream press is wrong. Franno is throwing a few digs and even Tony Ward was critical of the team in his article yesterday.

They weren't really that critical were they? Popey mentioned about the difficulty scoring tries, but then followed that up immediately by comparing Leinster to Ireland in that regard. Quinny mentioned the season being up and down. But there was relatively little actual criticism from what I recall. And DOB himself actually said that MOC seemed to be doing a very good job, although God help anyone who listens to him.

As for Tony Ward I do have to laugh at the fact that his latest article specifically talks about a lot of fans concerns over Leinsters performances not 1 week after he publicly had a go at Leinster fans for vocalising those concerns.

Buer

Francis and Hook have been scathing of him. David Kelly has been sticking the boot in. Gerry Thornley, superfan, was critical in his recent piece:

once again Leinster couldn’t buy a try and were indebted to Ian Madigan’s accuracy off the tee

Leinster missed 26 tackles to Bath’s 13. Alarmingly, this followed the 30 missed tackles a week previously against Glasgow. That’s 56 missed tackles in successive home games, give or take a few. From the vantage point of the cheap seats in the Upper West Stand, Leinster’s defence had more dog legs than a kennel.

At times even missing pillars after a phase or two, there were system errors as well as all of those missed first-up tackles.

The journalists aren't going to cut their noses off to spite their faces and attack MOC outright (aside from the ones who know they don't have a hope of a career outside of deliberately being controversial) but there's no doubt as to who carries the can for the issues.

.ak

Well I'm not sure what else pundits on ATH are supposed to say? Should they be baying for blood etc? Seems all quite reasonable to me (although I'm just going by the examples posted here, I didn't actually watch it).

From what it sounds like they're not ignoring the issues, but aren't calling for heads to roll either. But they should be doing neither of those things, they're just their to offer their analysis.

stephen_n

.ak wrote: »

Now? Why now?

Like, as bad as Jimmy is, Madigan is worse.. especially his kicking from hand? And by the sounds of it he's going to be used as a 12 next season too.

It'd be madness to start him at 10 now...

The only argument that could be made for that is Goperth looks jaded, we have flogged him so much this season.

molloyjh

.ak wrote: »

Well I'm not sure what else pundits on ATH are supposed to say? Should they be baying for blood etc? Seems all quite reasonable to me (although I'm just going by the examples posted here, I didn't actually watch it).

From what it sounds like they're not ignoring the issues, but aren't calling for heads to roll either. But they should be doing neither of those things, they're just their to offer their analysis.

They were very bland and, to be honest, soft when it came to discussing Leinster. When it came to discussing the fans they weren't so much. In fairness that was mainly DOB himself. He was snide and condescending in the extreme. But the others were commenting on the fans and how they weren't supportive enough.

At no point did Popey talk about us crabbing across field aimlessly like he did in his article in the Herald though. At no point was there real discussion over the number of missed tackles. They simply didn't talk about the issues at all. The glossed over things with bland statements like "they've been a bit up and down". There really wasn't any meaningful analysis done at all.

And btw I'm not, nor have ever been, expecting them to call for heads to roll. I'm not even sure where that line came from above.....

padser

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Okay, do you think any of 1/2 or 3 apply to the current situation? I know theoretically a team's tactics can lead to high missed tackle count (Henshaw in 6N), but are any of those applicable to Leinster this season?

Well one example I can think of is our current use of the box kick.

While I'm often critical of Reddens and Bosses kicking I refuse to believe they are so bad that they are attempting to kick contestables and constantly overcooking them by 20 yards. Therefore I believe we are following a tactic of getting length on our box kicks rather than attempting to regather.

One implication of this is that the opposing team has a better opportunity to run back at us (in evidence against bath) and break a tackle.

I'd guess (don't has the stats to be sure) that kicking contestables reduces the number of missed tackles you have...

CatFromHue

It doesn't help that they had a tendency to talk over each other the other night. Hard to get a discussion going when you're being interrupted halfway through each point.

irishbucsfan

padser wrote: »

Well one example I can think of is our current use of the box kick.

While I'm often critical of Reddens and Bosses kicking I refuse to believe they are so bad that they are attempting to kick contestables and constantly overcooking them by 20 yards. Therefore I believe we are following a tactic of getting length on our box kicks rather than attempting to regather.

One implication of this is that the opposing team has a better opportunity to run back at us (in evidence against bath) and break a tackle.

I'd guess (don't has the stats to be sure) that kicking contestables reduces the number of missed tackles you have...

Ireland do the exact same thing with their contestables, as do a lot of teams in this country and outside it.

It's about the most value out of the kick possible, and often you actually will get a better return by putting the kick further up field, and it's more true the closer to your own line you make the kick. This is a pretty commonly applied tactic, you'll see it in club rugby as well.

molloyjh

padser wrote: »

Well one example I can think of is our current use of the box kick.

While I'm often critical of Reddens and Bosses kicking I refuse to believe they are so bad that they are attempting to kick contestables and constantly overcooking them by 20 yards. Therefore I believe we are following a tactic of getting length on our box kicks rather than attempting to regather.

One implication of this is that the opposing team has a better opportunity to run back at us (in evidence against bath) and break a tackle.

I'd guess (don't has the stats to be sure) that kicking contestables reduces the number of missed tackles you have...

I was sitting with my dad for the game and he was going nuts about our "chase" on those kicks, in the first half particularly. He was saying (and I wasn't paying enough attention to it at the time) that if you watch our line you can see everyone checking where the line is regularly. Nobody is shooting up out of the line and so there's a slowest buffalo element to it, i.e. that the line moves at the pace of the slowest team mate. Now whether this was the case or not I'm not sure (although I'll be watching out for it when I watch the game back this evening) but it would certainly explain why on a number of occasions Bath were able to run the ball back and seemed to have an age on it when they did.

errlloyd

Tackles missed under Joe and MOC are a bit misleading. They also seem to allow a shooter to try and pressurize the ten, he almost always goes down as a missed tackle, but he buys the rest of the defensive backline some time.

BoardsMember

Buer wrote: »

We'd probably be looking for someone that would be available all year round, so I'd agree, Kockott is unlikely. Cowan was a good player a few years ago but I don't think we'll be replacing a 34 year old with a 33 year old. He's starting to slow down judging on his performances and game time this season.

It's a tricky position to fill. There are a couple of highly rated scrum halves in South Africa who are fringe players for SA that we could target. It all really is dependent on the Kirchner situation, though. It's looking very likely that Nacewa will replace Gopperth. We'll need another empty slot to get a scrum half in.

I'm concerned about this. Listened to Dawson on Down the blindside the other day and it is certainly looking like this is going to happen. My memory of Isa playing at 10 was that he did it poorly most of the time. I hope my memory is wrong, it would be desperately disappointing to replace Gopperth with a 10 who will not control a game, particularly if he's keeping young fellas off the team. I'd much prefer to see them get game time, sink or swim.

molloyjh

BoardsMember wrote: »

I'm concerned about this. Listened to Dawson on Down the blindside the other day and it is certainly looking like this is going to happen. My memory of Isa playing at 10 was that he did it poorly most of the time. I hope my memory is wrong, it would be desperately disappointing to replace Gopperth with a 10 who will not control a game, particularly if he's keeping young fellas off the team. I'd much prefer to see them get game time, sink or swim.

Isa wasn't a good 10. In fact I think it's fair to say that in reality he is not a 10 at all at this level. And even if he was reasonably good it'll have been over 2 years since he last played the game and I don't even want to think about how many years since he played 10 more than twice in succession. Would it be 5 or 6 years?

I love Isa and part of me loves the thought of getting him back. But when you compare the signings in Ulster and Munster I can't help but feel very underwhelmed by the signing of Isa.