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

Watching the game yesterday and the second half scrummage performance by the bench was not good.

Also restarts?

Nah I think you have just been overthinking things.

Rewatched the game. We weren't as poor as I thought on initial viewing. Our physicality was top notch and was a massive improvement over recent performances. We had Bath retreating at almost every collision. Can't stress how good the front row were as a carrying unit.

Bath were dreadful in defence and made a hames of even the basic things, but Leinster were ruthless in punishing them regardless. Lowe in particular was excellent. His overall contribution to our attack has really come along in leaps and bounds. He's always been a great line breaker and offloader. But now he has developed into a proper playmaker as well. Ringrose had a strong game too. Not as eye catching as Lowe, but he did all the subtle stuff and basics to a high level. They were my picks of the best from the backline anyway.

Our intensity definitely dropped after 50 minutes though. The forwards didn't win as many collisions and the backs didn't get as good a platform to perform. Overall it was a decentish performance. Lots to work on, but it was good to see us cycling through the gears again.

We missed Ryan a lot today. He's more physical than Molony or Baird in the tight exchanges and I feel like we missed his ability to get his hands free. Baird tried to do that, but spilled the ball.

What the actual f* is this s*!? Comparing our second choice 10 to other first choice 10s in terms of our ability to win the competition? Also, Ntmack sure as hell wasn’t all that yesterday himself, but sure to hell with maintaining any form of perspective.

Our front row got embarrassed!? What!? How? We lost 1 scrum and 1 line out. Meanwhile those 3 made 91m, beat 6 defenders, made 3 clean breaks and scored 2 tries. They were fine at set piece and light years ahead of anyone else in the loose.

You’d expect a team with ambitions of winning the trophy to lay down a marker? Like Toulouse you mean? Who relied almost entirely on DuPont to beat a hugely weakened Cardiff!? Racing? They were grand but nothing special against a hopeless Northampton. They were coasting in that game.

Teams don’t win the HEC in round 1. We need to ignore that last 20 mins yesterday. We had Frawley at 10 for the first time in around a year or so. We had the 2 O’Briens in the centre. Have they ever played there together, let alone with Frawley at 10? We were missing Ryan so Toner, whose form is poor, came on. And for the last 5 or so we deliberately played with 14 men. We clearly decided that once the game was out of Baths reach we’d try a few things. It didn’t pan out but it didn’t cost us either. We were good enough in the first half but were probably a little guilty of complacency, especially in the second half.

We’ll probably see very little of Sexton until the HEC knock outs. And even then that’ll depend on who we are playing. If we have him, Ryan and Henshaw available as well as maybe Conan too, we’ll be in as good a position as anyone else to challenge for things. I just don’t understand why some here are so keen to find any and every fault and blow them all wildly out of proportion. Some serious catastrophising going on for very little reason IMO.

Leinster and Montpellier have both reported Covid concerns.

Wonder how it works if neither team can field, 28/28 draw bonus point draw would be alright in the grand scheme

There's something just a little bit off about how Leinster are playing at the moment. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they're not managing to exploit soft shoulders and punch over the gainline as much as Ireland did against Japan and New Zealand with largely the same players. It was noticeable against the Bulls earlier in the season as well, I thought. Leinster had to have players latching on to make ground post contact because they weren't finding soft shoulders enough for individual runners to do it.

They don't seem to be trying to fix the issues in the second row. 19-year olds Okeke and Campbell got on fine for Munster at the weekend, but Leinster went for two backrowers on the bench against Ulster rather than get 20-year old Joe McCarthy involved in the XXIII. I don't know why they're discriminating against Jack Dunne when it comes to selection. It's not a case of him being in heavy training to bulk up, because they were happy for him to go off and play for the Baabaas. Personally, I would have started Toner against Bath - because I think he would probably complement the Baird man better than Molony would - but if he's only benching, would it not have been better in the long run if Dunne got those minutes?

Perhaps Leinster are trying to give off the impression they have limited options in the 2nd row so the Union would be more likely to sanction a signing. Leinster and the second row: it's a bit like Munster and centres; always feel they have to have an NIQ in there.

Dunne was ruled out of that game due to covid after the ba ba's camp same as vermulen for Ulster.

Someone pointed out that Josh Murphy is being looked at as a 2rd Row option now. At 6 5 he's a similar height to Moloney and Baird.

I see Van Graan is leaving Munster. He isn't a particularly good coach and Munster have regressed under his tenure.

Munster have had varied success over the last decade with head coaches. More poor appointments than successes imo. Makes me glad for the relative stability at Leinster.

Could be harsh but I've zero sympathy for any of our players if they get done for not rolling away, having rolled towards the opposition scrum half.

Surely if munster can field a team missing 34 players. Leinster can field a team if missing 10 or 15 players.

And seemingly they are training today..

Yes I think they're worse than when Erasmus departed. Squad is stronger overall but perfoances have never gone on to the next level. That's regression in the context of team sports, I think. Their rivals improved while they stood still.

I think there have been times when they threatened to actually become something more. The SF performance against Toulouse was impressive. But they followed that up by stinking the place out against Leinster in the league final. His Munster never had the consistency, nor the ambition to become a properly good side.