Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: [****]

Buer

Dubinusa wrote: »

Didn't M.O.C bring Kane Douglas to Leinster? Douglas was very underwhelming and looked off the pace. If I recall, he played Gopperth ahead of Madigan and I believe that was a mistake.
I may be wrong though.

He would have been involved in the signing of Douglas, alright. I'd have little criticism for that. KD was a high quality player who was the type of guy we needed. Nobody was to know how he'd turn out. We're as well to criticise Schmidt for bringing in Sykes which would be silly in itself.

Lote Tuqiri is a worthy one for criticism. I think Te'o was a good signing but his signing was a good indication as to what way MOC wanted to play and what we should expect. It probably should have set off some alarm bells.

I think Gopperth over Madigan was one of the few things that he got right. I still can't get my head around why, of all the problems, the selection of a proven quality outhalf like Gopperth over the inconsistent Madigan was the issue that MOC was probably criticised more than any decision. People will still hold that opinion to this day despite the respective careers of the two of them since. Also worth noting that Gopperth was signed before MOC ever arrived.

Dubinusa

I think Madigan lost his way somewhat during that period. Although he is not a great 10, I wish he was with Leinster now. R.B getting hurt would be devastating.

Buer

On a completely separate note, the highlights from the weekend are up. McFadden probably should have seen yellow against Cardiff for a no arms tackle in the lead up to Cardiff's second try. Morgan gave the final pass and McFadden appeared to smash him with no wrap after the ball had gone.

Buer

Buer wrote: »

Scarlets signed Angus O'Brien over the summer. He's no world beater but he has plenty of appearances at 10 for the Dragons under his belt.

I would think that even allowing for Patchell and JD being absent, their starting side this weekend is going to be better again than the one they originally named against Ulster.

I'd expect Gareth Davies to come back into the starting line up too with SHC moving to the bench. I don't see us coping with the return of Davies and Parkes in our back line defence, to be honest.

I'd say there's a decent chance of coming home empty handed. If I had been offered 5 points from these two games a month ago however, I'd probably have taken it.

I suppose it depends on who we have available. I'm not sure if Ringrose is fit / available but I'm presuming if he was his name would have been dropped by now.

I'd say Jack McGrath might be back this week and perhaps Toner. Obviously JVdF is likely back and in the backs we could see Larmour or Lowe step back in.

I also think Tomane is going to start to shine after a few games. Lowe was at sea last year when he came over and centre is a tougher position to learn but he'll start to click soon enough I reckon and I think he's going to be great value to us.

Buer wrote: »

On a completely separate note, the highlights from the weekend are up. McFadden probably should have seen yellow against Cardiff for a no arms tackle in the lead up to Cardiff's second try. Morgan gave the final pass and McFadden appeared to smash him with no wrap after the ball had gone.

He absolutely relishes the physical stuff and he does love to smash lads but he get's them wrong a few times a season and has a decent collection of cards at this stage. Was brilliant for us last season though, hope he picks up where he left off - certainly looked sharp when he came on, Dave Kearney similarly looks back towards his 2015 form.

molloyjh

Former Former wrote: »

In fairness to him, Leicester were doing pretty badly when he took over, he steadied the ship somewhat. They only missed the playoffs last year on points difference after an incredible injury crisis during the season.

The Reds haven't​ exactly gone on to great things since he left either...

Look, I wouldn't want to see him back at Leinster but I don't think he deserves the grudges being held against him here. I think he was to some extent a victim of circumstance and a few things going a different way could made a huge difference.

I wouldn't hugely disagree tbh. I'd tend to look a little less favourably on him than you, but only by a small margin. There were without doubt contributing factors. I wouldn't be holding a grudge, but I would be of the opinion that he really isn't that great a coach and isn't a good fit for a club with aspirations.

CatFromHue wrote: »

I've mentioned it on here before but was the Academy as trustworthy then as it was a couple of years later?

Just because a guy is playing great at 23/24 doesn't mean he would be the playing the same at 20/21.

If you look at some of the guys he didn't trust, Macken and Madigan (yes I know he wasn't in the academy but he was a young player) being two that spring to mind, they haven't gone on to great things since.

Dan Leavy, although he did have his injury issues, commented this season on how young lads just didn't for a second believe they'd get a fair shot during MOCs time. And he was someone who got capped in MOCs last season.

Now there's certainly an argument to be made that the Academy at the time wasn't producing the level of talent that it has gone on to produce, but guys like VDF and Leavy were 21 or so at the time and getting very little exposure. Compare that to Deegan and Doris now for example. Deegan is yet to turn 22 and he already has 22 caps. Doris, at 19, looks like he could amass a similar amount in the next couple of years. Leinster weren't really producing in the back line at the time, but we were still producing forwards well enough.

Buer

It will be interesting to see what sort of side we can field this week. It's expected that we introduce some more returning internationals to the fold. With that in mind, we'll probably see a few of the younger lads fall foul of this and miss out entirely. I'd love to see Deegan, Doris and Murphy continue to develop but if Conan and VDF are available, two of them are likely to miss out.

I would expect some of those lads to rejoin proceedings from the bench but there's still only so many spots in the 23. The 3 foreign players conundrum will continue to rear its head this week. I don't think the Scarlets away is the place to consider giving Hugh O'Sullivan his senior debut; they probably have the strongest scrum half combination in the league in Davies and SHC. JGP was also excellent from the bench last week; I find there's a massive gap between the impact he brings from the bench and his starting performances. I'm sure people won't be happy but that means Lowe left out again.

Unless we have Toner returning (and he played over 2,000 minutes of rugby last season), we'll probably have to go with Fardy again. I don't see Ryan being available after playing 240 minutes in Australia. I hope they take a shot with Toner though. We've enough resources to rotate himself, Fardy and Ryan for big games without anyone overreaching in game time.

I'm tentatively hoping for something along the lines of:

Dave Kearney, Lowe, ROL, Tomane, Byrne, Ross Byrne, JGP, Deegan, VDF, Ruddock, Toner, Mick Kearney, Porter, Byrne, Byrne

Cronin, Healy, Bent, Molony, Conan, Luke McGrath, Tom Daly, McFadden

CowGoesMoo100

Buer wrote: »

On a completely separate note, the highlights from the weekend are up. McFadden probably should have seen yellow against Cardiff for a no arms tackle in the lead up to Cardiff's second try. Morgan gave the final pass and McFadden appeared to smash him with no wrap after the ball had gone.

Didn't McFadden absolutely annihilate someone away at Cardiff a year or two ago aswell? Might have been Dan Fish. Didn't wrap his arms that time either and ended up getting carded if I recall.

Clegg

The worst/best no arms hit I can remember was Nacewa emptying poor Dan Hipkiss. No attempt to wrap and he really should have gotten a yellow for. But just look at it.

Beautiful.

https://youtu.be/JU-uFS8USLQ

Kevski

CowGoesMoo100 wrote: »

Didn't McFadden absolutely annihilate someone away at Cardiff a year or two ago aswell? Might have been Dan Fish. Didn't wrap his arms that time either and ended up getting carded if I recall.

Can’t find a clip of it at the moment but I’m pretty sure that he did wrap and that the yellow one was a poor call from the referee.

Buer

Clegg wrote: »

The worst/best no arms hit I can remember was Nacewa emptying poor Dan Hipkiss. No attempt to wrap and he really should have gotten a yellow for. But just look at it.

Beautiful.

https://youtu.be/JU-uFS8USLQ

I reckon the likely outcome would have been a yellow followed by a 1-2 week break.

troyzer

Did anyone see Henderson's neck roll against the Scarlets? I was shocked he wasn't binned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R72DuoX5QmI&t=341s

It's around the 2:20 mark.

troyzer

troyzer wrote: »

Did anyone see Henderson's neck roll against the Scarlets? I was shocked he wasn't binned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R72DuoX5QmI&t=341s

It's around the 2:20 mark.

He's lucky to get away with that - not so much a neck role as much as he just grabbed his head between his hands and pushed it into the deck.

I'd say it would only have been a yellow though, he didn't hit him, role him or impact his head on anything. If he had made contact with the ground it would likely be 4 weeks for him.

Glad to see Ulster forwards getting more physical but this is an example of losing control.

Buer

There's no neck roll there. He grabs him by the head and shoves him down. Penalty but I wouldn't have given a yellow. The Scarlets player is acting the maggot and impeding Henderson, he reaches out and wraps his left arm around Henderson's leg too in an effort to hold him.

errlloyd

Well Scarlets have no Davies or Patcchell and they're sweating on Dan Jones. But they do have Parkes, McNicholl, Lee and Halfpenny.

CowGoesMoo100

errlloyd wrote: »

Well Scarlets have no Davies or Patcchell and they're sweating on Dan Jones. But they do have Parkes, McNicholl, Lee and Halfpenny.

McNicholl and Lee are back?

errlloyd

errlloyd wrote: »

Well Scarlets have no Davies or Patcchell and they're sweating on Dan Jones. But they do have Parkes, McNicholl, Lee and Halfpenny.

I think not having Patchell and Davies is enough to give us an advantage. I don't think they are is inventive in the backs without Patchell who has a terrific array of passes and is a significant threat with the ball himself and Davies is one of the best in the game and a good second distributor.

Should be a good game with a marginally superior Leinster 23 playing away from home against a team with no shortage of reasons to turn us over.

It's a fabulous weekend of rugby. Leinster v Scarlets is a European Semi final and Pro14 final replay. Munster away to Glasgow should be an absolute belter. Edinburgh against Ulster will tell us a huge amount about both teams and it will be nice to see Connacht hopefully cutting lose against Zebre with much of their first choice backline available.

Add to that a morning of international rugby on Saturday with South Africa against Australia being an absolute must win backs to the wall for both teams and you couldn't really ask for much more from a weekend of rugby in September.

I just need to figure out how to watch as much of that as possible without being a terrible parent!

AdamD

Can't see how JVDF starts after such a long layoff. Will surely be on the bench if considered.

Buer

AdamD wrote: »

Can't see how JVDF starts after such a long layoff. Will surely be on the bench if considered.

I was thinking that too but given the absolute dearth of opensides available, I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the field from the off. We're going to need an openside up to speed fairly quickly with SOB, Connors and Leavy all unavailable so I'd rather he starts this one (if possible) and we try something else out at home to the Dragons rather than vice versa.

Burkie1203

https://twitter.com/CianTracey1/status/1037266963087671297?s=19

arsebiscuits1

Toner is insanely durable. I know Heaslip got all the longevity plaudits in his playing days but Dev must be up there too.

I can't recall him missing any game time due to injury in the last 4-5 years. If he had it certainly wasn't more than 2 weeks.

arsebiscuits1

arsebiscuits1 wrote: »

Toner is insanely durable. I know Heaslip got all the longevity plaudits in his playing days but Dev must be up there too.

I can't recall him missing any game time due to injury in the last 4-5 years. If he had it certainly wasn't more than 2 weeks.

Hardly surprising considering he's pretty much permanently in an altitude tent.

Dubinusa

Toner is insanely durable and his game has improved year after year. I reckon we'll see healy or McGrath and Cronin this week. Vdf on the bench? Just having Vdf available is a relief. Ruddock is a fine player but he's no openside.

swiwi_

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: [****]

Is the thread title

1) Four stars (Aren’t we awesome)
2) Suggestions welcome (Please make one)
3) Fùck (Boards auto-correction strikes again)

?

Neil3030

swiwi_ wrote: »

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: [****]

Is the thread title

1) Four stars (Aren’t we awesome)
2) Suggestions welcome (Please make one)
3) Fùck (Boards auto-correction strikes again)

?

It's a tribute the flag of the Southern Hemisphere powerhouse... Comoros.

swiwi_

Neil3030 wrote: »

It's a tribute the flag of the Southern Hemisphere powerhouse... Comoros.

Four stars is all good. Only retard nations have 6 stars.

swiwi_

In any case, Leinster is a club hungry for more success, so I would go with

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: For starters

Faugheen

swiwi_ wrote: »

In any case, Leinster is a club hungry for more success, so I would go with

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: For starters

And the main?

swiwi_

Faugheen wrote: »

And the main?

More trophies...

(For starters, four star-ters)

thegreycity

Too clever, dial it back.

swiwi_

swiwi_ wrote: »

3) Fùck (Boards auto-correction strikes again)

?

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread X: It's pronounced 'Ringtone'