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

Clegg

The coaching of the pack isn't an issue. They're all very well drilled and competent at their jobs. Maybe our overall game plan needs tweaking though? When we go up against the very biggest packs we tend to get too focused on the slug fest and ignore opportunities out wide.

A beast of a second row wouldn't go amiss, but I don't think even that is absolutely necessary. Some tweaking in attack wouldn't go amiss though. I'm not advocating for an attack from everywhere game plan. But a few more offloads and chips and grubbers would go a long way to making us less predictable.

salmocab

The issue was a ridiculous season, finishing last season followed by not the right amount of European games with an absolute cake walk of a knock out game was the reason leinster didn’t perform. It was a mess of a season and I’d not waste anytime worrying about it. Next season is the one to keep an eye on not this one.

molloyjh

salmocab wrote: »

The issue was a ridiculous season, finishing last season followed by not the right amount of European games with an absolute cake walk of a knock out game was the reason leinster didn’t perform. It was a mess of a season and I’d not waste anytime worrying about it. Next season is the one to keep an eye on not this one.

And let's not forget a huge number of our players were absent from Leinster for large parts of the season. I know people like seeing issues that need to be fixed, but we were missing guys through injury and/or international duty for most of the season. How could we look at our best when we've been so badly disrupted?

salmocab

molloyjh wrote: »

And let's not forget a huge number of our players were absent from Leinster for large parts of the season. I know people like seeing issues that need to be fixed, but we were missing guys through injury and/or international duty for most of the season. How could we look at our best when we've been so badly disrupted?

This was an odd season and beyond Leinster looked good v Exeter and off the boil v LAR I’ve no worries going forward. It’s been an absolute arse of a year and really there’s nothing to take from it beyond Leinster are in a good place, the negativity about the team is close to laughable.

briandebum

I think the main issue ye face at Leinster (& to a lesser degree at Munster & Ulster) is that in the league the forwards are often good enough to win the game by themselves. Simply too much beef in that pack for the other Pro14 sides.

To my eyes, this leads to the backs being untested when they come up against sides which can achieve parity with the pack. Now I know it's tough to separate the performance's of the forwards & backs (ie backs are never going to look great when forwards are going backwards.) however for me there is a wee lack of creativity in the backs at Leinster at the moment.

This is why the addition of the South African sides to the league can only be good for Irish rugby. I don't think you're going to find as much success with the pick and go from 5 out against the Bulls as you have against Ulster. Coaches will have to adapt more creative game plans which will hopefully feed through to the national team.

Dubinusa

I'm not being negative. I am stating some issues that I see and think will be hard to address.

Sheep Shagger

Details of ballot for Dragons test game being sent to official members today.

From memory there are about 6,000 of them and capacity of 1200 for the game....not great odd but gotta be in to win i guess.

BoardsMember

LAR are a very good side. We missed Doris at the breakdown, where we got done. Scrums and lineouts were fine. We also missed Sexton. RB didn't have a bad game. But Sexton at his best is considerably ahead.

I too would like to see some more variation in our play, more varied kicking, passing and offloading. We definitely seem to rely on retention and repetition wearing down opponents, quick ball recycle to repeat. Inevitable outcome for us is penalties, cards, tries.

Against the very best, and most physical, where they can withstand this, we sometimes struggle. No team is perfect, hopefully we can improve variation a bit next year.

aloooof

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Details of ballot for Dragons test game being sent to official members today.

From memory there are about 6,000 of them and capacity of 1200 for the game....not great odd but gotta be in to win i guess.

I think there’s a decent chance a certain percentage of those may not want to go too, so your chances would be increased by dint of that too.

molloyjh

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Details of ballot for Dragons test game being sent to official members today.

From memory there are about 6,000 of them and capacity of 1200 for the game....not great odd but gotta be in to win i guess.

I believe its open to staff in Vincent's too.

Clegg

Connors is out for the rest of the season. He recently had surgery on his injured knee. Think we all knew he wouldn't take further part anyway but the surgery is new info. Hopefully he makes it back for the start of next season. Been a disastrous year for the team injury wise.

https://twitter.com/leinsterrugby/status/1399350842696867842?s=09

Podge_irl

I think all the provisos around the last 2 seasons are eminently fair.

I will be a little worried if next season is similar though.

Interested Observer

Podge_irl wrote: »

I think all the provisos around the last 2 seasons are eminently fair.

I will be a little worried if next season is similar though.

Don't really know what's going to change next season tbh. I thought Leinster would win Europe this season but reckon the team just isn't quite as good as we thought/hoped. It's a SF in Europe level side, might win it with a good draw/run, and that's fine really. I love the fact it's being done with all the homegrown/Irish players.

Squidgy Black

Interested Observer wrote: »

Don't really know what's going to change next season tbh. I thought Leinster would win Europe this season but reckon the team just isn't quite as good as we thought/hoped. It's a SF in Europe level side, might win it with a good draw/run, and that's fine really. I love the fact it's being done with all the homegrown/Irish players.

Less broken players ideally! Would be great to have the likes of COB, Deegan/Doris, more than one outhalf, a full backline. Would allow for more planned rotation than picking up anyone in the academy/sub academy who was sent a kit, and in turn give a bit more consistency to the game plan.

arsebiscuits1

That's unfortunate about Connors.

I wonder did he get a letter from Gatland that he was being considered and held off until the squad announcement before going under the knife

Podge_irl

Interested Observer wrote: »

Don't really know what's going to change next season tbh. I thought Leinster would win Europe this season but reckon the team just isn't quite as good as we thought/hoped. It's a SF in Europe level side, might win it with a good draw/run, and that's fine really. I love the fact it's being done with all the homegrown/Irish players.

The season won't be so horrifically disrupted? The level of injuries was absolutely insane this season. The squad was chopped and changed and all over the place. I'm loathe to get into the "ProX is too weak" ****e, but having the South African teams will definitely help.

Interested Observer

Podge_irl wrote: »

The season won't be so horrifically disrupted? The level of injuries was absolutely insane this season. The squad was chopped and changed and all over the place. I'm loathe to get into the "ProX is too weak" ****e, but having the South African teams will definitely help.

Yeah the injuries were pretty awful but is there a much better XV that Leinster could have fielded v La Rochelle? I don't really know tbh - Sexton is the obvious one but the rest of the team was there imo. And I don't think Sexton would have swung the result. That's what the season came down to really, that game. But again, I'm fine with where Leinster are. I can't flippin' wait to get back to the RDS.

Podge_irl

Interested Observer wrote: »

Yeah the injuries were pretty awful but is there a much better XV that Leinster could have fielded v La Rochelle? I don't really know tbh - Sexton is the obvious one but the rest of the team was there imo. And I don't think Sexton would have swung the result. That's what the season came down to really, that game. But again, I'm fine with where Leinster are. I can't flippin' wait to get back to the RDS.

The backrow was far from where it could have been, but ultimately it is about more than what is fielded on the day.

molloyjh

Podge_irl wrote: »

The backrow was far from where it could have been, but ultimately it is about more than what is fielded on the day.

Exactly. Players aren't robots that just click back into place after being away for a while. It takes time to get back into the systems etc. Ahead of a European SF we'd normally have 1 European KO game and 2 league games to get guys back up to speed. And that after the being available for large chunks of the season, including 6 pool games in Europe. This time around we got 1 European KO game and 1 makey uppy competition that nobody cares about after an insanely disjointed season that only included 2 pool games. How many times did we have a full strength team playing 2 or more games in a row this season?

aloooof

As a neutral / outsider, the other thing I would add is that results / performances aren’t absolutes. It’s natural after a high-profile loss to start looking for what’s gone wrong and where things are lacking, but if Leinster had to play La Rochelle 10 times, I’d fancy them to win (at least) 5 of them, say

There’s always room for improvement but that doesn’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong either. I’d fully expect Leinster to be there or thereabouts next season (alas )

Interested Observer

Podge_irl wrote: »

The backrow was far from where it could have been, but ultimately it is about more than what is fielded on the day.

Don't really agree with the underlined, I don't think Leinster can field a backrow of much higher quality than Ruddock/VdF/Conan, but I do agree with the second bit. Resting everyone against Munster was a mistake imo, even though they'd come off the 6N and had played a lot of rugby.

Burkie1203

Interested Observer wrote: »

Don't really agree with the underlined, I don't think Leinster can field a backrow of much higher quality than Ruddock/VdF/Conan, but I do agree with the second bit. Resting everyone against Munster was a mistake imo, even though they'd come off the 6N and had played a lot of rugby.

But if one or two players in certain positions got injured then what .....

stephen_n

Interested Observer wrote: »

Don't really agree with the underlined, I don't think Leinster can field a backrow of much higher quality than Ruddock/VdF/Conan, but I do agree with the second bit. Resting everyone against Munster was a mistake imo, even though they'd come off the 6N and had played a lot of rugby.

I would assume he means Baird covering 6. Not the starting backrow.

arsebiscuits1

aloooof wrote: »

As a neutral / outsider, the other thing I would add is that results / performances aren’t absolutes. It’s natural after a high-profile loss to start looking for what’s gone wrong and where things are lacking, but if Leinster had to play La Rochelle 10 times, I’d fancy them to win (at least) 5 of them, say

There’s always room for improvement but that doesn’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong either. I’d fully expect Leinster to be there or thereabouts next season (alas )

I agree with this. And it brings to light how harsh knock out rugby is.

It's not a reasonable expectation to expect to win every game all the time.

And now more than ever I think it's extremely close at the top of Europe with any of the top teams being able to beat any of the others on their day.

Some people like to point to Leinsters "better times" in 2018. We could just have easily lost to Sarries in the quarters as they were good enough to beat us that day or lost to Racing in the final. The margins ultimately were so fine. Flip those results and we're having a totally different conversation.

In similar vein the (two) losses against Sarries and the most recent one against LAR were very close regardless of the score and one or two things flip the other way and we win.

If we had to play any team in world rugby in an NBA style best of 7 I genuinely think we'd win against any other team.

It's disappointing to get knocked out. But I don't think there's a systematic issue in Leinster. I don't think we're underpowered. I don't think we're on a downward trend. I don't think the coaching team needs a shake up. I don't think we're currently a semi final of Europe team at best.

AbusesToilets

In terms of attack, I do think we're not as effective generating breaks in the middle of the field. Henshaw and Ringrose are excellent players, but they don't tend to slice through defensive lines. From anecdotal observation, most of Ringrose's breaks seem to come when he tacks back against the grain, ie gets the ball from a ruck going right, then runs back to the left behind other players to find a gap in the defense.

It's almost a shame that Larmour doesn't play in the centre, his ability to step would be perfect to help make those half breaks to set up an offload. I wish we used him more effectively coming through the middle in attack. That's an area that Keenan has impressed this season.

realhorrorshow

AbusesToilets wrote: »

In terms of attack, I do think we're not as effective generating breaks in the middle of the field. Henshaw and Ringrose are excellent players, but they don't tend to slice through defensive lines. From anecdotal observation, most of Ringrose's breaks seem to come when he tacks back against the grain, ie gets the ball from a ruck going right, then runs back to the left behind other players to find a gap in the defense.

It's almost a shame that Larmour doesn't play in the centre, his ability to step would be perfect to help make those half breaks to set up an offload. I wish we used him more effectively coming through the middle in attack. That's an area that Keenan has impressed this season.

Larmour would have to run in a straight line occasionally to play in the centre. Really like him as a player but he is very frustrating to watch sometimes, dancing side to side when he would be better served running straight and hard.

Dubinusa

I agree about Larmour. He seems to try to do too much. But he can open up a defense. He really has plateaud this year.
Like Larmour, Ringrose has been good without being outstanding. Both of them missed significant time with injury and are both capable of slicing through defenses.
It's also true that any of the top 3 or 4 teams are capable of winning on their day.
My concern is the aging players in key positions. Take Healy as an example, he isn't the carrying force he was and quite often is driven back or stopped dead at the gainline. This obviously impacts the forwards as they have to work harder to support him and it also means that others have to carry more than they used too.
I think we got the squad wrong for the semi. I think Baird should have started at lock. I think Murphy should have benched for the back row and Toner and Fardy should not have been selected.

Squidgy Black

realhorrorshow wrote: »

Larmour would have to run in a straight line occasionally to play in the centre. Really like him as a player but he is very frustrating to watch sometimes, dancing side to side when he would be better served running straight and hard.

Noticed that a lot of teams have copped on to it as well, he doesn't get anywhere near the same return that he used to from it as defenders are ultimately expecting him to just try and step them, and as a result he was forced inside a lot.

crisco10

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Noticed that a lot of teams have copped on to it as well, he doesn't get anywhere near the same return that he used to from it as defenders are ultimately expecting him to just try and step them, and as a result he was forced inside a lot.

For sure, and when he does sidestep as often as he does, the odd time that he just accelerates for the line defenders are caught napping. (E.g. Hogg for Larmour's 2nd try against Exeter). Just wish he would do it more.

arsebiscuits1

Dubinusa wrote: »

I agree about Larmour. He seems to try to do too much. But he can open up a defense. He really has plateaud this year.
Like Larmour, Ringrose has been good without being outstanding. Both of them missed significant time with injury and are both capable of slicing through defenses.
It's also true that any of the top 3 or 4 teams are capable of winning on their day.
My concern is the aging players in key positions. Take Healy as an example, he isn't the carrying force he was and quite often is driven back or stopped dead at the gainline. This obviously impacts the forwards as they have to work harder to support him and it also means that others have to carry more than they used too.
I think we got the squad wrong for the semi. I think Baird should have started at lock. I think Murphy should have benched for the back row and Toner and Fardy should not have been selected.

You've banged this drum on Healy consistently but being blunt it's not actually founded.

Healy suffered near retirement worthy nerve damage and a hamstring avulsion in 2015 and has had to adapt his game as he wasn't able to carry like he did from 2010 to 2013.

Since he's put those injuries behind him he's maintained the same consistent high level. He's been the best loosehead scrummaging prop since 2017-18 season. Consistently excellent tackler and offers all around physicality.

Your stick to beat Healy with of not being a carrier has been in situ since 2014. This whole "he's stopped on the gainline or driven back" is not a new thing. Healy has been an effective but not destructive carrier for the last 6 seasons.

And your argument for starting Josh Murphy is just vague hindsight. Josh for all his strengths has shown extreme naivety in discipline this season as well as sub par handling.

Toner and Fardy were selected on merit from a very impressive showing against Munster the previous week.

The whole "relying on aging players" is just a tired lazy trope prattled on by those who don't do enough research. Just because a player is in their 30s doesn't mean that there is some mythical off switch.

Every top team in world rugby relies on older players in key positions.

All Blacks in 2015 had McCaw, Carter, Smith, Nonu, Woodcock all well into their 30s.

South Africa in 2019 had Beast, Vermuelen, Louw.

Wales in 2021 had Alun Wyn Jones, Owens, Jonathan Davies.

All players well into their 30s who teams with success are utterly reliant on.