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

stephen_n

Some of what's online is of the Matt O'Connor ate my hamster variety, some is very well balanced and reasoned approach, to dismiss it all as one is just lazy journalism, typical of a poorly run and poorly edited paper i.e. The Indo. I doubt anyone even the most moderate fans would have been anything but pissed off about what was served up on Friday. Yes the conditions were awful but we had a near full strength team and have had squad consistency since the end of the 6n, all the excuses are gone and we played like that. My dad said to me after the game "I went to my first Leinster game in 1951, that's the first game since then I have ever left early", that's a pretty damming indictment of how poor we were on Friday. I remember being in Donnybrook in the early 80's and getting stuffed by Ulster, the snow beating down so you couldn't see the far end of the pitch and we still stayed till the end. It's really hard to try and be optimistic about next season when there is absolutely no signs from the team they're capable of improving, 2 or 3 big games a season is not enough. Things need to change and rapidly.

molloyjh

stephen_n wrote: »

2 or 3 big games a season is not enough.

Did we even get that this season?

molloyjh

Panti Bliss as new Leinster head coach? You heard it here first.....Neil Frances once again does not disappoint!

http://m.independent.ie/sport/rugby/leinsters-hope-is-merely-disappointment-deferred-31209529.html

total former

The Sindo is an awful paper but Fanning is one of the best journos around.

If Francis is against O'connor, then not only should he see out his term, he should be given an extension forthwith.

total former

Also, anyone who bothered to read Fanning's piece would have seen that he very clearly distinguishes between the loonies and people who have a firm grasp of the game, and makes the point that heat is building on MOC across the spectrum. Fanning actually sums up perfectly all the arguments that the more moderate MOC-outers make.

But sure why bother actually reading the thing? It's easier to jump to the conclusion that fits your own preconceived position, then accuse him of laziness. That's not ironic at all.

OldRio

total former wrote: »

Also, anyone who bothered to read Fanning's piece would have seen that he very clearly distinguishes between the loonies and people who have a firm grasp of the game, and makes the point that heat is building on MOC across the spectrum.

But sure why bother actually reading the thing? It's easier to jump to the conclusion that fits your own preconceived position, then accuse him of laziness. That's not ironic at all.

Now that is irony.

Buer

The Parish King wrote: »

Congrats to Sean Cronin on winning the players' player of the season, and Jack Conan on winning the Young Player award!

I think Cronin fortunate enough; Conan is more secure in his win. They've had far more quiet second halves to the season. I'd have gone for Toner or Heaslip for the senior award and Furlong for the young player, possibly, although can't argue too much on the Conan decision.

Interested Observer

Buer wrote: »

I think Cronin fortunate enough; Conan is more secure in his win. They've had far more quiet second halves to the season. I'd have gone for Toner or Heaslip for the senior award and Furlong for the young player, possibly, although can't argue too much on the Conan decision.

Toner? Thought he's had a fairly average season, has been much better for Ireland than Leinster. Heaslip basically dragged Leinster through the pool stages this season, was the clear winner for me.

molloyjh

OldRio wrote: »

Now that is irony.

I disagree with total former on a few things around this topic but he's completely right on this one. There are loonies online that are every bit as bad as the journos make out. I'm getting pretty sick of some of them on Facebook particularly. Fanning does talk about the more moderate elements and how they are joining the "loonies" in terms of their opinion on MOC. And he clearly doesn't disagree with the issues the moderates are raising. He said Leinster were so bad on Friday that they made the "loonies" look credible.

However there are still issues with his article. He claims the problems for Leinster started during the 6 Nations. But that's simply not true. A mini-reversal of form did happen in January for a couple of weeks, but the form prior to that was really poor.

Then when talking about the poor form during the 6 Nations he talks about the loss of guys like Sexton and Drico. But we would never have had them during the 6 Nations anyway so that's all irrelevant.

He talks about MOC having a point with regard the quality of players available to him during the international windows, but doesn't acknowledge that Leinster still had a lot of experience and talent in the squad too. He even suggests MOC was right to say the back-ups weren't good enough. Yet the back-ups count players like Bent, Strauss, Furlong, McCarthy, Ryan, Jenno, Boss, Gopperth, McFadden, D Kearney and Kirchner. There's a lot of talent and experience in there for games against either weak sides or other sides missing their internationals.

There is also no recognition of the fact that a lot of the issues we've seen all season we saw again on Friday. This time with close to a full strength squad who have all been in Leinster camp for 6 weeks. The disruption, the "deprogramming" and the lack of leadership cannot be used to excuse that performance. To my mind nothing can. If the issues really were all down to those things we'd have seen a marked improvement in how we played on Friday. We didn't. It's unfortunate that the only one really willing to vocalise that is Francis.

Buer

Interested Observer wrote: »

Toner? Thought he's had a fairly average season, has been much better for Ireland than Leinster. Heaslip basically dragged Leinster through the pool stages this season, was the clear winner for me.

Toner was MOTM in two of the pool games and excellent against Toulon ending up on team of the tournament. Heaslip was excellent too but Toner definitely didn't have an average season for Leinster.

thomond2006

So MOC suggests the backup isn't good enough. He then proceeds to re-sign one of the more expensive backups: Zane Kirchner.

Interested Observer

thomond2006 wrote: »

So MOC suggests the backup isn't good enough. He then proceeds to re-sign one of the more expensive backups: Zane Kirchner.

Really grinds my gears. Not good enough to beat Dragons and Treviso? What about the first team getting thrash by Ulster, twice by Munster, etc?

MOC, please.

molloyjh

thomond2006 wrote: »

So MOC suggests the backup isn't good enough. He then proceeds to re-sign one of the more expensive backups: Zane Kirchner.

It's the indigenous back-ups that aren't good enough. He was excited about working with the renowned Leinster Academy until he got here. Now he'd rather buy in someone.

molloyjh

Interested Observer wrote: »

Really grinds my gears. Not good enough to beat Dragons and Treviso? What about the first team getting thrash by Ulster, twice by Munster, etc?

MOC, please.

In fairness we had a good few injuries at home to Munster so that wasn't a first team, and loads of guys were rested for the trip to Thomond so that was a complete second string side.

Interested Observer

Buer wrote: »

Toner was MOTM in two of the pool games and excellent against Toulon ending up on team of the tournament. Heaslip was excellent too but Toner definitely didn't have an average season for Leinster.

Madigan was also in the team of the tournament so I wouldn't be taking a whole lot from that. It's probably because it's done statistically and Toner took about a billion lineouts (and Madigan kicked a lot of goals). I still don't think he's been as good for Leinster as for Ireland.

Edit - maybe Madigan wasn't, I could have sworn I read he was. I can't actually find the team of the tournament online anywhere.

Heroditas

total former wrote: »

Also, anyone who bothered to read Fanning's piece would have seen that he very clearly distinguishes between the loonies and people who have a firm grasp of the game, and makes the point that heat is building on MOC across the spectrum. Fanning actually sums up perfectly all the arguments that the more moderate MOC-outers make.

But sure why bother actually reading the thing? It's easier to jump to the conclusion that fits your own preconceived position, then accuse him of laziness. That's not ironic at all.

Why bother make any reference to the "LoL"s at all?
Nobody gives a sh1te what they think yet it's become almost a running feature in the Indo.

total former

thomond2006 wrote: »

So MOC suggests the backup isn't good enough. He then proceeds to re-sign one of the more expensive backups: Zane Kirchner.

What did he say?

wowy

molloyjh wrote: »

Panti Bliss as new Leinster head coach? You heard it here first.....Neil Frances once again does not disappoint!

http://m.independent.ie/sport/rugby/leinsters-hope-is-merely-disappointment-deferred-31209529.html

For a man who has a record of saying stupid things in relation to gays, he really isn't helping himself there comparing Panti Bliss to Krusty the Klown and Pee Wee Herman....

molloyjh

wowy wrote: »

For a man who has a record of saying stupid things in relation to gays, he really isn't helping himself there comparing Panti Bliss to Krusty the Klown and Pee Wee Herman....

It's a good thing that he didn't do that so....

wowy

molloyjh wrote: »

It's a good thing that he didn't do that so....

"Krusty the Clown, Panti Bliss, Pee Wee Herman and the Grand Old Duke of York could not do any worse than the shambles we saw at the RDS."

Putting Panti Bliss in the same category as the pair of them (especially when they're being used to derogate MOC) is not a way to ingratiate himself with any Panti fans.

Don't think anyone is going to stick up for the Duke of York though.

CatFromHue

Anyone read Jennings interview in The Times today?

I got the feeling that he was unhappy with some of the players attitudes. He's mentioned it before and mentioned it again that some of the players need to stand up and be counted.

RuggieBear

Nim wrote: »

For a little while, yeah.

Yeah, sorry, my finger slipped as I was scrolling down the page...only 2mins before i realised I'd closed it

Clegg

CatFromHue wrote: »

Anyone read Jennings interview in The Times today?

I got the feeling that he was unhappy with some of the players attitudes. He's mentioned it before and mentioned it again that some of the players need to stand up and be counted.

He criticised the whole squad. Implied that the Internationals weren't working as hard as the rookies and that the rookies and non-internationals weren't stepping up during the test windows when the main players were away. Don't usually see that level of criticism from a current player.

CatFromHue

Yeah I was surprised at it myself

Teferi

Is it on The Times website? Can't see it.

CatFromHue

Teferi

Type it out there for us so!

total former

CatFromHue wrote: »

Yeah I was surprised at it myself

I was pretty taken aback too but it's good to see someone trying to put their finger on what's going wrong. Rare enough a retiring player will be so frank too.

If nothing else good comes from this season, at least it will remind everyone of the need to work your ass off.

Mahatma Geansai

Its along the lines of what I've been saying/thinking over the last few months. You don't fail to impress whenever you're away from home because of a terrible coach, you fail to impress then because of a lack of leaders/intelligence within the player base.

Peregrine

RuggieBear wrote: »

Yeah, sorry, my finger slipped as I was scrolling down the page...only 2mins before i realised I'd closed it

Ohh. At the time, I knew it was a terrible match but I thought closing the thread was a bit harsh :pac: