Leinster v Stade Toulousain ultimate grudge match

Brendan Bendar · 14-05-2022 4:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061333#Comment_119061333

Well I wasn’t in a position to either see or listen to the game due to other commitments.

I could only tune in for the evaluation after the game with the two pundits and was quite surprised at how ‘top note’ Cahill got to very quickly.

Apologies if that didn’t meet with your expectations.

I felt Cahill’s ‘contribution’ was worthy of comment as an integral part of the game presentation on radio.

Neil3030 · 14-05-2022 4:48pm

I'll take Irish rugby for $400

"Billy Burns, Ross and Harry Byrne, Jack Carty and probably Ben Healy"

Bzzzzzzzz

"Who are the Irish out-halves who probably couldn't make Furlong's pass to Keenan"

Ding Ding Ding

Clegg · 14-05-2022 4:57pm

Ross Molony is just getting better and better. Some of his delayed passing before contact was perfectly timed. I actually think he's better than Furlong in that regard.

pickarooney · 14-05-2022 5:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061300#Comment_119061300

It's a home game for me, I live 30 minutes from the Velodrome.

swiwi_ · 14-05-2022 5:49pm

Very good performance from Leinster. I think Toulouse are just a bit crap though. If they are in the top 4 in Europe, then Europe is really not that good at the moment. Compared to Leinster, their ruck ball was so slow, and they were way less organised on attack. They were fairly ill-disciplined at times too. Still, you can only beat what's put in front of you, and that was comprehensive from Leinster. My MOTM - Henshaw.

cuttingtimber22 · 14-05-2022 5:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061314#Comment_119061314

Lyon, Nice, Beziers (Ryanair used to fly there) may also be options. And sometimes when you add a everything in, charters can be ok value and less hassle.

ersatz · 14-05-2022 6:17pm

Henshaw was outstanding, getting across the gain line every time, even when he shouldn’t. JGP was so quick, but he made a few uncharacteristic mistakes. That first half was an incredible exhibition of attacking pressure rugby, not sure any team could stay with Leinster playing like that. And still they’ll see areas to improve.

14-05-2022 6:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119059941#Comment_119059941

Rochelais Allez!

Larbre34 · 14-05-2022 6:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061708#Comment_119061708

No, they were quite obviously fatigued. But calling them 'crap' is absolute nonsense. 7 French grand slam winners mere weeks ago and a slew of excellent foreign players. The reigning champions.

Yes, its now in the season when Irish player management really comes into its own, but Leinster needed more than that, they needed to be excellent as well and so they were.

Burkie1203 · 14-05-2022 6:50pm

https://twitter.com/TheLooseH/status/1525485362159706112?t=vA3S4g8HNJBqweVJq35Pkw&s=19

Joué indeed

Larbre34 · 14-05-2022 7:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061405#Comment_119061405

😂.

Clegg · 14-05-2022 7:20pm

I know Dupont scored a 90m try, but other than that I thought Leinster did an excellent job keeping him quiet. They did such a good job at slowing down Toulouses ruck speed that Dupont never had the chance to pick and snipe around the fringes.

Clegg · 14-05-2022 7:54pm

With respect, the Famine is the single greatest tragedy to ever befall Ireland. It destroyed generations of families between death and emigration.

There's also a very strong argument that it caused generational trauma that affected people well into the 20th century. More than 150 years after the event.

If ever there was something that needed remembrance, it's this.

Clegg · 14-05-2022 8:05pm

Leinsters average ruck speed for the first 20 minutes was 1.6 seconds. Their average ruck speed for the first half was 2.6 seconds. Both average speeds are I credibly good. As a rule of thumb, anything under 3 seconds is very good. Leinster were well under that.

Their pack was so, so good in recycling the ball and getting it to JGP quickly. The Toulouse defence just wasn't given the opportunity to align itself correctly.

All_in_Flynn · 14-05-2022 8:07pm

Moloney will surely be touring based off these performances? Delighted for him. Showed up all over the pitch.

Hard to split Sexton and Henshaw but I'd probably just give the edge to the latter for motm. Would love to see his gain-line success numbers today. Felt like he was hammering over every time he touched the ball. Looks like a man who is full of energy and power after a disrupted season.

Really hope Furlong's injury is not as bad as it looked and he can make the final. That pass was ridiculous.

If Leinster play like that again then I just cannot see either remaining side living with them. Speed of play is killing teams. Think La Rochelle stand the better chance of the 2 remaining French teams.

molloyjh · 14-05-2022 8:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119061708#Comment_119061708

Toulouse have had a very tough run in to this game and we’re out on their feet fairly early on. Agreed on Henshaw though. Was my MOTM too. His work rate and decision making were superb. For a guy who was I’ll during the week his performance was seriously impressive.

gameoverdude · 14-05-2022 8:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119062869#Comment_119062869

So I'm guessing you didn't enjoy Furlongs pass?

Clegg · 14-05-2022 8:25pm

Ahh, I didn't realise I was responding to one of the occasional reregistration accounts that are there to troll.

cuttingtimber22 · 14-05-2022 8:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119062786#Comment_119062786

Leinster would have beaten the all blacks today with that performance.

pickarooney · 14-05-2022 8:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119062926#Comment_119062926

Tadhg was fired up by the thought of no potatoes.

Pussyhands · 14-05-2022 8:33pm

Leinster were always going to hammer them today. I would have said pre game Leinster by at least 15. Leinster have 15 top quality players all over the pitch. It's essentially the Ireland team, just O'Brien and Molony not starting for Ireland.

Everything is set up for Irish success. Our funding and set up is just ideal for our development. The URC/Pro 12 etc. is just not competitive enough to cause issues for Leinster. Plus they have the best coach in europe in Lancaster.

English and French teams are in physical battles every week needing to win while Leinster can send a 3rd team over to SA while the big guns rest up.

OldRio · 14-05-2022 8:35pm

Fantastic display by Leinster.

As for the coverage on BT? Awful. The choice of camera shots at times was poor. Replays when the game was live.

Rather amateur in my view.

gameoverdude · 14-05-2022 8:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119063002#Comment_119063002

Doesn't like soup?

Dubinusa · 14-05-2022 8:46pm

Absolutely delighted! Great performance! Sexton showed the other 10's how its done. There's nobody with a shout of him.

Even though we are a lighter, smaller side, we took it to them. Massive collisions and physicality. Pretty smart kicking game too. Conan was immense! Couple of drops that were poor but, everything else was top drawer.

Magnificent effort!

Larbre34 · 14-05-2022 8:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119063022#Comment_119063022

Sounds like a strongly worded letter to Arthur's Ballbag could be in order.

Larbre34 · 14-05-2022 9:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119062869#Comment_119062869

What political movement??

I have never associated famine memorial with any particular political hue in this Country. You're way off in everything you said.

14-05-2022 9:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119062647#Comment_119062647

And in what way were Stade Toulousain implicated? For me it was the height of boorish ignorance and whoever thought it up deserves a resounding kick in the sweetbreads.

Faugheen · 14-05-2022 9:30pm

People really giving out about commemorating the Famine?

Bore off lads, have a day off.

Larbre34 · 14-05-2022 9:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119063521#Comment_119063521

Boss man, I'm just saying they were each a mass genocide, albeit caused by different motivations.

6 million died and also 1.5 million died. Both deserve absolute solemn respect and memorial. I don't give a brass plated **** what you think the ICC would think of either scenario now.

salmocab · 14-05-2022 9:50pm

Honestly I thought the game would go well but I genuinely didn’t see a chat about the famine coming. Leinster really can constantly bring us to great places.

All_in_Flynn · 14-05-2022 9:58pm

I can’t believe it got so many bites to be honest. Some of the posters to respond should know better.

molloyjh · 14-05-2022 9:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119060823#Comment_119060823

Just rewatching it having been there. The audio for everything on field is terrible. Can hardly hear the ref and there were def times in the first half when the crowd was very loud, but it isn’t coming across on the TV at all. Bizarre.

pickarooney · 14-05-2022 10:12pm

Some of the reactions are baffling. Ugo Mola being interviewed, whingeing about the fact Sexton has played 12 games while Ntamack has played 27.

Ugo Mola, Ntamack's coach, who selected him 27 times this season.

Maybe don't work your star players to death and they won't be so tired? Crazy idea?

Meanwhile he's out collecting full backs and wingers like shiny Pokemons and he'll still no doubt complain after he picks one of them 30 times and leaves the others to rot, piss away millions on world stars who barely play and trot out some guff about relegation, as if Toulouse have ever had to worry about that.

molloyjh · 14-05-2022 11:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119064005#Comment_119064005

Sure don’t you know that the knock outs are meant to be contested by tired teams unable to produce their best. It’s what the fans want.

TRC10 · 15-05-2022 5:21am

That was unbelievable. One of the best Leinster performances in years. Henshaw, Sexton and James Ryan the picks of the bunch for me, but everyone was outstanding. Our attack just could not be contained. Our accuracy at the breakdown and thus are speed of ball was insane. And those pull-back passes to Sexton from the middle-man of the pods just baffled the Toulouse pack. They were looking to shoot up, be physical and smother us, but we just kept moving the ball away at the last second. We were toying with them. The 101 on how to play against a bigger team. We genuinely looked unplayable. Our defence was also absolutely outstanding. Scrum got annihilated again but we were so utterly dominant in every other area it didn't matter.

I know he's only played 2 games, but in those games James Ryan has looked like being back to his 2018 best. He's been brilliant. Henshaw showing once again that when he's fit and firing, he's one of the 3/4 genuinely world class players on this island. Sexton just masterful, assisted all 4 tries.

Play half as well as we did yesterday and LAR or Racing don't stand a chance. I think the stars (all 5 of them) could be aligning for us this year.

15-05-2022 6:18am

Still can't figure out how we lost that.

15-05-2022 7:39am

Best Leinster performance in a long long time. Genuinely could have picked any of c. 7 or 8 guys for MotM. Physicality in defence was so pleasing to see.

My heart was in my mouth on so many of those delayed pull back passes from Molony et al., kept expecting some of them to hit the deck, but each and every time the pass was precise and Sexton splits their defence.

Watching Rory Arnold floundering in mid air after the Sexton dummy before the JvDF try was also worth the admission fee alone.

One of the absolutely great days for Leinster, against a team with 9 Grand Slam winners.

molloyjh · 15-05-2022 7:42am

I don’t think the scrum went as badly as people feared. We were pinged on all of their put ins and won all of ours. So we did give up 4 scrum penalties. Although only the first scrum saw us monstered. And I’m not sure that we were rightly pinged on some of the others. Porter was pinged on one for stepping out and around, but on replay he never stepped out at all. It looked like the wheel came from their side. We also managed to limit the impact that the scrum had by only giving them 4. And only 1 of those led to a score.

We managed their maul fairly well overall to. They didn’t get many chances to maul and they did score off one, but we held them on a couple of others.

On the whole the set pieces we were most concerned about just wasn’t all that influential yesterday at all. We stole a couple of the line outs so really managed to stop their mail from getting into the game. The game was won by the side who played the rugby. Will be interesting to see the stats, including the ball in play stats and the collision dominance stats. At one stage in the game we were well on top in collision dominance, which in itself was great to see.

Also, that Furlong pass. Outrageous. The balls out the back from Molony too. There must have been 3 or 4 of those and they really caught Toulouse out. The decision making around when to pass, and when to delay the pass, was excellent at times. We were picking gaps all over the place and getting so much front foot ball. A rush defence has to be careful because we are finding space behind defenders with the delay but then if they sit off we can just get to the edges quicker and with our ruck speed we can go edge to edge and pull teams around until there’s a gap or mismatch. It’s so enjoyable to watch.

15-05-2022 7:43am

Moloney made TEN passes throughout the game, which is a mad number for a second row. Conan was in double figures for all of carrying/tackling/passing so he had an extremely busy game. You could point at basically anyone and say they played well. I think Larmour probably would still be in the team if he hadn't gotten injured but it's completely nailed on otherwise.

Now that the dust has settled though, we need to talk about the set piece. All of the scrums, mauls and restarts were average at best. Mauls in particular are just not good in attack or defense, I think there is a coaching issue there tbh.

15-05-2022 7:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065105#Comment_119065105

Restarts were poor especially in the first half, but you could see the players in the ground really struggling with the sunlight directly in their eyes at that point.

Maul defence has been a little concerning at times this season, as plenty of teams seem to have good success with that, but it's pretty much the only thing. Lineout was good yesterday generally, and we were putting a lot of pressure on their throw.

Our ruck speed in attack, the accuracy of the clearouts, ball presentation and speed of JGP to get to the ruck though is unparalled in European domestic rugby.

molloyjh · 15-05-2022 7:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065105#Comment_119065105

I don’t think that’s true, especially on the mauls. There’s was one maul in particular that we stopped them dead on. The one they scored from would have been in touch for any other team. There was just some excellent awareness and feet from Tolofua to keep himself in play. We drove another one of theirs into touch as well IIRC.

We nicked a few of their line outs and we’re def in top there.

As for the scrum, as above I’m not sure they should have been awarded all of the penalties that they got. They destroyed our first but after that there were 3 penalties. 2 for collapsing and 1 for wheeling. Certainly the wheeling one seemed a bad call on replay. On our put in we also managed to get clean ball every time IIRC. We also denied them many scrum opportunities anyway which is probably the best way to counter a strong scrum in the first place.

15-05-2022 8:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065115#Comment_119065115

I specifically didn't mention the lineout because it was quite good and both yesterday and last weekend (not a lot of people know this but Leinster also had a game last weekend) we made some absolutely key lineout steals. On other occasions we didn't compete and tried to stop their maul at source.

TRC10 · 15-05-2022 8:12am

The scrum is without doubt the main weakness in our game. For me, there wasn't much between the two front rows on paper, but the difference was the pure power that was coming through from the entire Toulouse pack. Power that we just couldn't live with.

But that's the trade off you make when you have athletic, skilful locks rather than big, powerful scrummaging locks. There isn't one perfect formula in rugby. No doubt, if we had guys like Arnold and Meafu, we wouldn't have been dominated in the scrum, but we also wouldn't have been able to play the high tempo, passing game we did. Molony and Ryan aren't particularly big but their skills are fantastic.

Ultimately, we just imposed our game on them far better than they did.

pickarooney · 15-05-2022 8:54am

It's good for the game to have these contrasts in styles. Mobile, athletic forwards who her minced in the scrum versus behemoths who rack up penalties at scrum time but can't move or think fast enough in open play.

Sangre · 15-05-2022 9:59am

Maul defence has been fine I think. I agree our attacking maul is no longer the weapon it once was. However the team seems to only use it to pull in players before going wide.

that being said the maul where henshaw gave away a penalty looked a certain try.

sydthebeat · 15-05-2022 10:10am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065018#Comment_119065018

Shure weren't we dominated all over the field....

15-05-2022 10:32am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065517#Comment_119065517

Yeah that is a good point and pretty criminal from Henshaw, he knew exactly what he'd done straight away, it did look like a try though.

Buer · 15-05-2022 10:39am

I thought our maul defence was excellent. They scored a try due to a brilliant finish but we had done very well to drive the maul right over to the touchline. We also stopped a couple dead. You could see how good the body positions were and we couldn't be budged. Referee had to tell Toulouse to use it on a couple of occasions when they hadn't made any ground.

The match stats say that Toulouse made 3m from 5 mauls which I'd imagine was the try. I'd guess they worked hard on maul defence after Leicester.

pickarooney · 15-05-2022 10:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065646#Comment_119065646

At what point is a lineout over? As in, what causes the ref to lower his arms and allow other players to join a maul?

Yeah_Right · 15-05-2022 11:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065680#Comment_119065680

The maul has to move off the mark where the lineout was. Either forward or backwards. Just moving the ball to the back of the maul but not moving the maul isn't enough. Or it can move sideways across the 15m or 5m line.

Leinster v Stade Toulousain ultimate grudge match

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