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

If Hansen and Larmour are approximately equidistant from the corner post, and Larmour heads for the corner, then the touchline could come into play.

Was it lucky?

Like, if you can step players like Larmour can, why wouldn't you back yourself?

It actually was not good play from Keenan imo, he didn't fix Hansen at all so he left Larmour with plenty left to do. Keenan passed far too early imo and Larmour did very well from that point. Are we seriously having a go at him for scoring?

Also - claiming Lowe was at fault for Jordan's try against Ireland is a load of nonsense. He was marking 2 players. He can drift out more and either leave a massive gap between himself and Ringrose or just get passed around. Stop this video at 2s, look at the lay of the land and explain what he should have done differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvz-rv55dg0

Christ this is awful stuff.

Larmour seems to look to step too often at times, when he'd be better served to just run and attack a gap.

On the Keenan passing thing..

He was right to throw the pass when he did. The angles of the strike play dictated that he received the ball on a drift, and any more steps he took would have eaten up Larmours space. He was absolutely right to feed Larmour early and give him as much time and space as possible to finish. Delaying it any longer would have allowed the Connacht defence to get across.

Lowe's try v NZ was similar. Keenan didn't fix the last man, but he knew that Lowe 1-on-1 from 5 yards out is always going to score, so instead of eating up his space just for the sake of fixing a man, he fed him early and Lowe did the rest.

I know people always say to fix your man but sometimes when you're drifting into the winger's space, are that close to the tryline and the scramble defence is getting across, the best thing to do is give the pass early and trust your winger to finish.

Keenan's timing of pass is world class.

Agreed. And Larmour did the right thing too. There were multiple defenders pushing across into the space dead ahead. By cutting back inside he was always going to have the advantage because he was hitting soft shoulders. People have said Robbs tackle was a bad one. Robb couldn’t have done any better because Larmour had come back inside and targeted Robbs inside shoulder as Robb was pushing across. He was never set to make a tackle. Ever.

Larmour’s a guy who is well capable of finishing those opportunities. He knew it and he did finish it. There’s micro analysis and then there’s nit picking. Anyone complaining about that score in anyway is definitely, definitely nit picking. At best. It was a really well constructed and well finished try. I simply can’t see anything wrong with it at all.

Squeaky bum time now so....

I assume they'll name a squad at midday still and pray that they get go further positives before KO tomorrow...

Well it was comedy gold when it was Munster but now it’s serious.

This is a pain but unfortunately we’re going to see a lot of it over the next while.

Being fast over 10m is far far more important for rugby players than being fast over 40m.