Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread XII (The Byrne Supremacy)

Dubinusa

Looking at the stats, Deeny 10 enters on 6 carries, 6 passes and 15 tackles. That's a good day at the office for a novice.

He's going to be a good player. Not a superstar, but solid.

Dubinusa

Some neckrolls missed by the ref. One on Keenan and another on Deeny or Milne. There was a high hit on VDF by Tipuric. None of which were reviewed. I think the one on Milne or Deeny was dangerous as a pile was coming through and he was forced to the field awkwardly.

We got away with at least one. I think it was Larmour coming in late and high on a ruck. It was in the 1st half.

Rigor Mortis

Ref was interesting.

Before going to hard on Foley in particular, that is the worst scrum platform any SH has had to work off all season. He had a tough day, but he'll hopefully move on. HB is a bit more worrying, his mistakes were fairly varied and not all due to set piece pressure. I may have missed it but I'm kind of surprised at the grief Osborne is getting. I thought he had some nice moments.

Ross was excellent and as others have said, himself and Ryan won it. Byrne unquestionably deserves the start against Wales.

There was a moment when Ross went down that it was looking like Charlie Tector starting against Gloucester and Racing. That could have been interesting.

This was a big win. Considering it will be a very weak team touring SA, we cant bank on many points there. We need a decent lead over the Stormers. With us likely to beat them in Dublin, this is a huge step ahead.

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080569#Comment_120080569

Conan came good late after a poor 50 minutes.

Wouldn’t agree with that at all. The only front foot ball we were getting in the first half was from Conan. Most of our ball carriers were getting driven backwards but he fairly consistently made it across the gain line with his footwork. He started making bigger breaks later on when the Ospreys tired but he was by a long way the MOTM.

crisco10

Anybody else notice the score was identical to the score at the rds last season? I.e. away team won by 19 - 24. Exacting revenge for sure.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080593#Comment_120080593

At this stage, Ross should be getting the ten jersey when available. He needs to be handed the baton for European games where Sexton is unavailable. He looks much improved on last year which is great.

He looked pretty good at this stage last year too though. Its all about whether he can make the step up to European knock-out level. He deserves the chance at least for sure, but I wouldn't be too confident yet.

Hippo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080724#Comment_120080724

Connacht knew all the lineout calls courtesy of Dooley. I think that's a one-off.

Former Former Former

We should probably chill a bit.

We can't be utterly dominant in every aspect of every game for 80 minutes.

Ospreys played a clever match with an effective but ultimately limited gameplan. We kept our heads and rode it out. No need to panic

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081252#Comment_120081252

Do you honestly think they used the same calls?

Dooley would have been able to give them information on the tells. What Kelleher does before he throws or what a jumper does to signal to his lifters that he’s going. There is no way in hell they used the same calls.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081294#Comment_120081294

You may be right, but you must be very concerned about our scrum? Considering that our scrum has been a weakness v big teams and without Jenkins it still appears to be.

Wales will give us problems next month at scrum time.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081307#Comment_120081307

I thought that too. Maybe Connacht are that good. It's more likely that Kelleher struggles with his darts.

sydthebeat

Connacht after very good at defending line outs

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081597#Comment_120081597

I've noticed. Seriously talented lads in that side. The Murray Brothers are great as is Thornbury.

I think these lads will be in the wider national squad.

Dubinusa

I think Leinster should be looking for a medical joker at hooker? McKee and McEvoy won't do the job. Kelleher and Sheehan will miss chunks of the remainder of the season.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081294#Comment_120081294

Exactly this. We're not dealing with machines here, there will match weeks where there is forensic focus and sombre determination but you can only switch that on sparingly. We looked a bit shell shocked in the first half and credit to Ospreys, they were great. Both teams hilariously offside all game and we tend to struggle when that's the case.

We had two really good patches in that game, the second of which produced two match winning scores. We had numerous unrewarded trips to the Ospreys 22 which we need to look at and why we coughed up possession in those instances. The Conan penalty was ridiculous, ref got that completely wrong but we weren't clinical and if we were the spread would have looked a bit different. As strong as Ospreys were at times we defended comfortably enough against them.

Dubinusa

Furlong is beginning to be a worry with his injury profile. He's become unreliable. He's missed a lot of time in recent years.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081633#Comment_120081633

Conan wasn't held in the tackle at all, but he looked to be fair crawling along the floor to me which you can't do either.

The conditions played a massive part in a number of Leinster attacking moves falling apart also.

Clegg

Any conversation about the scrum and quality of our props must also include the make up of the second row. Ross Molony has many qualities, but he isn't a physical brute. Deeny looks a decent prospect, but he isn't massive either. Having both locks be underpowered is a risk for any game.

Leinsters scrum with Ryan and Jenkins in the second row has been solid at worst and dominant at best. We may have an issue once you go past them, but that's to be expected.

Serbian

Yeah, the penalty against Conan wasn’t given because the ref thought he was held, he indicated it was the crawling on the ground.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081636#Comment_120081636

He isnt really. Certainly not unreliable. he doesnt play a lot as he doesnt need to or at least he primarily needs to be fit for Leinster and Irelands big games and just needs to be fit for those. He's fairly carefully managed.

CIARAN_BOYLE

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081929#Comment_120081929

It's probably a big argument that Leinster makes when claiming they need a NIQ tighthead.

We need to manage Furlong. A high quality NIQ backup allows us to do so.

So far the IRFU have agreed.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080982#Comment_120080982

Thought Osbourne went well enough. Was watching on the phone so I guess I missed some of his mistakes, but I saw him distributing well and carrying strongly. There was one in particular towards the end where he got hit in a double tackle close to the Ospreys line, that should have seen him knock back but he powered thru and made a positive gain

Interested Observer

Some people need to chill the beans a little, and honestly some posters are just beyond tedious at this point. It's not possible to go out and whomp every team in every game with a perfect performance.

Exclamation Marc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082021#Comment_120082021

Not only that. But players are having one sub-par to bad game and some posters want the player banished. Very tiresome to read.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082418#Comment_120082418

I don't think that's what posters are implying. I think criticism is good because we can't be everything is rosy. We didn't play well and STILL managed to win. That's the ideal scenario. Young players will take this and learn from it.

The 2nd row wasn't big. That's true. Molony is rather light and Deeny is raw and inexperienced. I think Deeny must be close to 115 kgs? He's a fairly big lad.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082502#Comment_120082502

Nobody is saying criticism is a bad thing and nobody is at all saying everything is rosy.

sydthebeat

That's a great win for Glasgow from a Leinster perspective.

11 points ahead, stormers with a game in hand, and yet to faced Leinster in Dublin.

Those 4 points in Swansea will be very valuable come the end of the season

Exclamation Marc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082502#Comment_120082502

Well as an example, one poster said that Healy and Ala'alatoa weren't good enough despite them both having largely good performances this season.

And the implication wasn't that they weren't good enough on the day (which they weren't) it was that they aren't good enough as second string forwards for the team, based on having a poor game yesterday.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082525#Comment_120082525

They'll be facing a very weakened Leinster side in Dublin though. 6 days after the end of the 6N. Pretty **** planning for what was always likely to be a top of the table clash.

CIARAN_BOYLE

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082557#Comment_120082557

With a European knockout the next week Leinster might be going full strength in an attempt to reintegrate players.

It's always hard to say.