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

We lost 2 line outs and stole 2 or 3. This was Cronins first game in ages. I think we can forgive 2 errors, can’t we? The constant misery on here sometimes is crazy. And often times wholly unjustified.

2 of which were against Zebre and the Dragons. I mean, if you're happy with wins against those teams regardless of performance then fair enough, but I want Leinster to win a 5th star this season, and right now we look miles off that level.

That doesn't mean I don't get joy out of watching rugby.

The only good rugby we've played this season has been when Sexton is on the field and we look rudderless without him, so I don't think it's crazy to be very concerned about our chances if he gets injured.

Positive result today. Enjoyable to be back at the RDS.

What did I say that's imbalanced and lacking perspective? The Sexton comment was quite obviously hyperbolic.

I never said there were no mitigating circumstances, but equally, it's 2 games in a row where we haven't played particularly well. Why is it frowned upon to point that out? Or are we only allowed to focus on the positives?

Maybe it is early days and maybe we did have guys coming back, that's fine. But we still aren't playing well. I'm not losing my mind about it, I'm pretty calm. But I'm entitled to point it out.

I never said we can't or won't improve, but surely even you would agree that we need to improve? That's all I'm saying. I never said we're crap, or we won't win anything.

Perhaps you think our error count was good?

Or our backup 10s look up to the task?

As you said, the Sexton comment was hyperbolic. Your comment on the line out was also unfounded. We lost 2 line outs in as many minutes and won every other one. You also haven’t highlighted a single positive, focusing only on the negative.

So let’s see what we can do to be a bit ore fair and balanced….

The Good

Ala’alatoa showed some nice touches and seems to be settling well.

Baird put a poor performance behind him last week and showed a lot of really good elements to his game this week, from rucking to carries to line out.

Penny and Ruddock continued their form and Leavy was solid and dependable, which is a real positive given his injuries.

Luke McGrath has continued to play well, Harry Byrne was decent with ball in hand which is all we can expect for his first game back in a while. Sextons form is really good.

Frawley and Osbourne looked good albeit a little disjointed (to be expected), Larmour had some really good moments, Adam Byrne went well and JOB had some really good runs.

Overall, we are clearly looking to play with more pace and out of contact more. Some of our passing, including tip ons, were really good today. Our set piece was strong outside of the line out wobble in the first half.

The Bad

There was that line out wobble that possibly cost us a score and the scrum was a little messy at times.

It would have been good to see a bit more ball playing from our tight 5.

Harry Byrnes kicking from the tee was poor and JOB made a few errors that possibly cost us and Adam Byrne over ran a few times, one that certainly cost us.

Our ambition at times led to us not protecting the ball in contact enough which led to a number of unforced errors. It also led to us probably forcing things a bit at times which saw us coughing up ball when we might have been better served taking a bit more time with it. This has been an ongoing thing over the last few weeks.

The Context

We had a mix of predominantly 2nd and 3rd string guys out there, a few of whom were either just back from injury or quite simply very inexperienced. Just think of who we were missing today. Porter, Furlong, Sheehan. Ryan, VDF, Conan, Doris, JGP, Henshaw, Ringrose, Lowe, Keenan etc.

If we are looking to play a more expansive game then that doesn’t come without a bedding in period.

This is just our 4th game of the season. In the 3 league games so far we’ve used 34 players. So it’s not only early days, but we’ve also rotated a fair bit too so we’re never going to really build much cohesion. Especially when trying to bed in a new style.

There have been positives and negatives over the last few weeks. Last week in particular was tough viewing. But we’ve won all 3 games and only dropped a point. There’s a long way to go yet so let’s give it time before making any judgements.

"Low reward" isn't a phrase I'd use to describe Joe's time at Leinster...

I suppose we should commend Dragons on their improvements. They've come on a bit. It's early days and we will see how we go over the next 2 matches. Stern tests both of them. Glasgow will be immensely physical and that's were we struggle.

It was a reference to how we used the ball not the overall success at cup time.

I don't think the endless recycling at ruck time and kick chase is a template we want to go back to

Yeah my memory of Joe’s Leinster was very good rugby with off loads and sharp back line moves.

IIRC Joe stated to the players that he wanted to make Leinster the best passing team in Europe (I think Nacewa may have mentioned this at some stage).

With the Lions back this week I can’t imagine Penny or Frawley would have been in the running anyway so no harm. Same for ROL. Harry’s injury is the one to worry about. Had he gone well enough last week I reckon he’d have made the 23 this week. As it is I expect Ross to start given the minutes Sexton played vs Zebre.

Porter, Kelleher, Furlong, Molony, Ryan, Murphy, VDF, Conan

JGP, RByrne, Lowe, Henshaw, Ringrose, AByrne, Keenan

Sheehan, EByrne, Ala’alatoa, Baird, Leavy, McGrath, Sexton, Larmour

This was Leinster 3 years ago….

https://youtu.be/1LjQzeiBouU

Ben Healy also isn't that good either. Has a massive boot and decent defensive game, but he's not a particularly creative 10.

Munster have a few young 10's knocking about right now. Crowley, Flannery and Healy. The latter has received the most game time to date.