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

Montpellier winning the Top 14 just sounds so odd. They're the worst team Leinster played all season and I know they didn't take their Champions Cup games seriously against us.

Can't help but feeling a bit bitter tbh. Leinster standards never dropped the entire season bar the very end, yet they end it trophyless.

Montpellier sent a bunch of kids to the RDS. It wasn’t even their 2nd string. That game has no relevance to anything at all.

I know they didn't take it seriously, but that's the point I'm making. I don't think Leinster took any fixture for granted this season and went into every game to win, even if they didn't perform to the level required to do so.

It just grates me a bit that other clubs, who clearly didn't take fixtures seriously, reached a level of success that we didn't.

We get it, you think Ringrose is ****

Not at all. It's more that I think Ngatai is really good, and Henshaw is the best 13 in Ireland.

Yes, being 1m 95 cms must have been a shocking handicap to Usain Bolt.

Which is a rather simplistic overview of human physiology. If I put on 10kg, I will be able lift heavier weights on compound movements. I will generate more power but it won’t make me faster. There are far more elements involved in acceleration than the length of your legs.

my kid is just over 4 foot, I’m going to time her on the 100m and see how far under the 10s she gets, really short levers on her

If Leo selects Ngatai ahead of Ringrose in any meaningful way then we’ll simply not get approval the next time we want to sign someone in a position that has internationals in it.

And again. Ngatai plays more than just 13.

Well the I think that's a problem for Leinster and Ireland. It doesn't really cultivate a high-performance environment if the established internationals are essentially protected from any competition at their provinces by the IRFU. Selection should be performance based any nobody's place should be guaranteed. I've got a feeling something like that happened at Munster with Murray and Carbery, who seemed to be guaranteed their place in that team no matter what. But if Leinster get punished for selecting their best team, I think that's a problem.

Carbery isn't guaranteed his place at Munster. He always gets picked because he's much better than Healy. Casey is closing the gap on Murray but he's not there yet.

Likewise, if Frawley is as good as he's made out to be, and Henshaw is actually a better 13 than 12, then surely Ringrose is already being kept on his toes. Not 100% sure why anyone thinks he needs to be but anyway...

Deleted.

Weirdly a link to a spam site that the Barbarians twitter page linked to.

This one does work

Dev missed his conversion attempt last night. Our search for Johnny's replacement goes on.

Honestly, it seems exactly like back in 2018 when everyone said Leo and Stuart were playing Carbery in the wrong position and he needed to leave to play 10 because it was his best position and he was the heir to Johnny's throne. Look how that turned out.

Having said that, the Ngatai signing does have me believe he will see more time at 10 next season. But that doesn't mean I think it's his best position.

It was absolutely the right decision to move Frawley from 10 to 12. He was playing well there, but it seemed like every game there would be a small period where every pass he threw would go to ground or go behind the intended recipient. He switched off for a few minutes and his game went to pot.

Since moving to 12 there haven't been as many mistakes and that extra second on the ball, which playing at 12 affords you, has allowed him to really develop his skills. I actually think he could be moved back to 10 now and he'd flourish.