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

ssaye2

sydthebeat wrote: »

people tend to forget Jimmy Gopperth was selected to take over from Jonny Wilkinson at Newcastle AND Johnny Sexton at Leinster

And I am going to guess at 300k per year will also make him one of the top players in England next year and probably ~ 2000 points in his career with Madigan taking the kicks for us a fair bit.

RobbieRuns

stephen_n wrote: »

I think a lot of Leinster fans, myself included, questioned Leo's appointment and felt he should have gone off and learned his trade elsewhere as a coach. I have been critical of our forward play at ruck time and lineouts, which would be Leo's remit. However it's hard to tell with the under resourcing rucks, if that's a sacrifice required to fulfill the bigger game plan and therefore not solely his fault. Also as demonstrated on Sunday, there's a headless chicken element by the players, with 3 standing on one pillar and none on the other, that's hardly a coached thing, though it sure as hell should be reviewed by Leo and corrected. I do think Leo escapes criticism though, the same way Madigan does as opposed to Goperth, the outsider elelement coming into play.

Listen, the buck stops with MOC and the game plan (whatever that is?) is his remit. Some fans questioned Leo's appointment and like yourself felt a bit of time away might have been better (ROG ?) before coming back. Most fans however were delighted at his appointment and I feel that if he was a different coach (not even a non-Irish coach), he would be getting more stick. We need to be careful to make sure that all criticism is balanced and fair. Gopperth and MOC should be getting it as the performances and results warrant it, but then so should others as well.....

Very fair and honest reply though Stephen.

Eponymous

thomond2006 wrote: »

Well I'm here to bring a bit of class to the RDS. :pac:

And when you do, I'll be sure to let everyone here know... :pac:

.ak

Big Nelly wrote: »

Which Angelsea terrace you in? I do admit I have missed a few games this year but never heard anything like this. one of the last game I made there was a few shouts of "kick" everytime Gopperth touched the ball but this was from the seats in Angelsea and it was when any player touched the ball...Kircher/Kearney etc

Terrace? Ha! Pleeeease.

I'm in the stand.

Eponymous

I sat in the Anglesea Stand once. Never again. Terrible view for the money, I'm just glad it wasn't a Leinster match!

.ak

I've sat everywhere and it's the best view in my opinion. Best height, no obstruction to view (if you select a seat near the front). Grandstand is too shallow for me.

Eponymous

.ak wrote: »

I've sat everywhere and it's the best view in my opinion. Best height, no obstruction to view (if you select a seat near the front). Grandstand is too shallow for me.

I was towards the back and the pillars just annoyed the crap out of me and seemed to obstruct a lot of the action on the field, missed a lot of breakdowns. The seat I was in costs €600 for a season ticket.

ssaye2

This 5th place in the league can really screw with our seeding for next years euro's yes? Just had a quick glance and even just looking the the teams placed 1-6/7 in each league currently we could have a very tough pool.

molloyjh

.ak wrote: »

Terrace? Ha! Pleeeease.

I'm in the stand.

Directly above the terrace so he can literally look down on us.

* Waves fist *

molloyjh

ssaye2 wrote: »

This 5th place in the league can really screw with our seeding for next years euro's yes? Just had a quick glance and even just looking the the teams placed 1-6/7 in each league currently we could have a very tough pool.

Yes our league finish will screw us next year in Europe. I don't want to think about that now though...

blackdog1

sydthebeat wrote: »

people tend to forget Jimmy Gopperth was selected to take over from Jonny Wilkinson at Newcastle AND Johnny Sexton at Leinster

And now he's replacing Andy Goode . ...

stephen_n

molloyjh wrote: »

Yes our league finish will screw us next year in Europe. I don't want to think about that now though...

Particularly if Ireland do well in the RWC and we get tough games straight up.

Zzippy

stephen_n wrote: »

Particularly if Ireland do well in the RWC and we get tough games straight up.

Is the ERC match schedule altered for next season i.e. do first two round games take place in November instead of October?

.ak

Eponymous wrote: »

I was towards the back and the pillars just annoyed the crap out of me and seemed to obstruct a lot of the action on the field, missed a lot of breakdowns. The seat I was in costs €600 for a season ticket.

Mine costs less and the views are great, I'm somewhere between the 10m and 22. But I'm literally in the first row.

The seats at the back are crap.

.ak

Zzippy wrote: »

Is the ERC match schedule altered for next season i.e. do first two round games take place in November instead of October?

Yes, but if we do well it'll carry the 1st teamers into November, especially if we play the third place play off or the big one...

Zzippy

.ak wrote: »

Yes, but if we do well it'll carry the 1st teamers into November, especially if we play the third place play off.

total former

Zzippy wrote: »

Is the ERC match schedule altered for next season i.e. do first two round games take place in November instead of October?

Yep

EPCR weekends - 2015/16 season

Round 1: 12/13/14/15 November
Round 2: 19/20/21/22 November
Round 3: 10/11/12/13 December
Round 4: 17/18/19/20 December
Round 5: 14/15/16/17 January 2016
Round 6: 21/22/23/24 January 2016
Quarter-finals: 7/8/9/10 April 2016
Semi-finals: 22/23/24 April 2016
Finals: 13/14 May 2016

thomond2006

total former wrote: »

Yep

EPCR weekends - 2015/16 season

Round 1: 12/13/14/15 November
Round 2: 19/20/21/22 November
Round 3: 10/11/12/13 December
Round 4: 17/18/19/20 December
Round 5: 14/15/16/17 January 2016
Round 6: 21/22/23/24 January 2016
Quarter-finals: 7/8/9/10 April 2016
Semi-finals: 22/23/24 April 2016
Finals: 13/14 May 2016

It's a shame Ireland couldn't have a one off international against NZ around that time. Especially considering we haven't played NZ since the 2nd test in 2012.

Zzippy

Zzippy wrote: »

He means if we make a semi-final third place play-off or final in the RWC.

Sorry, I meant when we make the final.

Hang on... what I meant was, when we win the final.

sydthebeat

blackdog1 wrote: »

And now he's replacing Andy Goode . ...

yeah, big shoes to fill

Zzippy

Deleted User wrote: »

He means if we make a semi-final third place play-off or final in the RWC.

Sorry, I meant when we make the final.

Hang on... what I meant was, when we win the final.

He made a ninja edit, the first time he only posted what I quoted!

For shame, ak, for shame... :rolleyes:

irishbucsfan

The_Captain wrote: »

For a bit of comparison, here's what I reckon the strongest match day 22 in 2009 was compared to our strongest match day squad in 2015

...

I think it's a better comparison than comparing today's team to Schmidt's Leinster.
Cheika and MOC have a lot of similarities in that they both advocate strong defence first and foremost, and Cheikas team when it was settled wasn't a free-flowing try scoring side, it was a brutal counter-rucking and hard yards side.

Yes, let's do that comparison shall we?

The 2008-09 season was pretty rubbish for Leinster most of the way through the season. We had an Australian coach who was under a lot of pressure and there were calls for him to be let go from his contract a year early coming from a few quarters, though mostly resisted in the media.

In the league we were miles below where we should have been. The league was far far less competetive back then than it is today (Connacht and Ulster weren't even interested, both were in the bottom 3) and yet we still finished below Edinburgh and only won 11 games. We were actually so bad that season that it ignited a massive fire under the squad to push on and win the Magners League the next season. We lost to Connacht, Edinburgh, Glasgow (Glasgow were a much less scary proposition back then). Munster, European Champions, beat us twice, including a 18-0 humbling at home.

Europe didn't go much better, until the end of the year. We lost to Castres, which is about as bad as it gets in Europe! The team couldn't put together a consistant performance to save their lives. We lost to the Wasps as well although thankfully everyone beat everyone else in that group and we actually topped it.

By the time the 6 Nations came around there were plenty of calls for the coach to go from fans. I don't think it was ever truly considered by management. We had an away quarter final in England, which is a day I'll never forget, where we narrowly beat an English team despite not scoring any tries, indeed they put a lot of pressure on us at the end and could easilly have won.

We then turned around in the week after our H Cup quarter final victory to lose against Edinburgh at home in the Magners League. We were still on a high from the quarter final victory really, but it cemented the fact that the team had no consistency into people's minds.

When the away semi final approached everyone wrote Leinster off. Of course they would, their opposition had recently won 2 Heineken Cups. Not only did the opposing squad all own Eurpoean medals but they had also beaten Leinster quite convincingly twice that season, and that recent result gave people absolutely no hope There was no chance Leinster were going to win that game, Croke Park was full of red jerseys and it genuinely felt like there was a very strong chance the crimson opponents would be celebrating their 3rd european success.

Of course, things turned out very differently from what was expected, when Cheika turned around and announced he was still going to leave at the end of his contract I remember I was in Cardiff (nope, it was Edinburgh!) and someone said "we'll be lucky to find another coach like him." We had no clue how lucky we would turn out to be.

There is a massive amount of similarity between that season and this season (without even getting into a discussion about onfield issues, like performances from half backs) although I genuinely can't imagine there's much chance the finish will be quite as sweet. The question you have to ask yourself, are those similarities coincidental or are they normative?



EDIT:

Ha, I thought I'd look for some articles about Cheika's troubles at the time, quite enjoyed this (completely justified) quote from the beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/my_club/leinster/7850049.stm

Under-pressure Leinster coach Michael Cheika will be mightily relieved at his team's qualification but on the evidence of this display, they are unlikely to progress much further in the competition.

thomond2006

I'm looking forward to a Champions Cup group with Toulon, Northampton and Oyonnax next season!

.ak

Zzippy wrote: »

He made a ninja edit, the first time he only posted what I quoted!

For shame, ak, for shame... :rolleyes:

I don't know what you're talking about....

stephen_n

Zzippy wrote: »

Is the ERC match schedule altered for next season i.e. do first two round games take place in November instead of October?

As far as I'm aware the first round is 2 weeks after the final, so if we get to the semis, the provinces will be missing all their internationals for the first round or probably two rounds.

total former

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Ha, I thought I'd look for some articles about Cheika's troubles at the time, quite enjoyed this (completely justified) quote from the beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/my_club/leinster/7850049.stm

Just for the lols of it, I went back and looked through some boards.ie comments in the wake of that game. A lot of people were calling for Cheika's head.

TheGoldenAges

total former wrote: »

Just for the lols of it, I went back and looked through some boards.ie comments in the wake of that game. A lot of people were calling for Cheika's head.

Bit of context though, we always seemed to struggle against Edinburgh in the 00's. No matter how bad they were we always struggled against them and they always seemed to raise their game against us.

irishbucsfan

TheGoldenAges wrote: »

Bit of context though, we always seemed to struggle against Edinburgh in the 00's. No matter how bad they were we always struggled against them and they always seemed to raise their game against us.

Well that's a pretty lousy excuse really, we were also beaten by Connacht who were the worst team in the league that season!

Is the rationale here that because something happened in 2009 with Cheika that it will happen again with MOC in 2015 because that's not how it works.

Cheika wasn't the miracle worker he's rememberered as but I don't think what he achieved is a template for what MOC is doing.

Our form never collapsed under Cheika the way it has this season.

irishbucsfan

Deleted User wrote: »

Is the rationale here that because something happened in 2009 with Cheika that it will happen again with MOC in 2015 because that's not how it works.

Cheika wasn't the miracle worker he's rememberered as but I don't think what he achieved is a template for what MOC is doing.

Our form never collapsed under Cheika the way it has this season.

No, that's not the rationale. Someone said we should compare this season with 2009, so I did.

Also, our form was very similar under Cheika to how it is this season, completely unpredictable, which is entirely the point.