Leinster v Munster match thread

No, I'm saying if he's below the level required he shouldn't be in the wider squad at all.

What do you expect them to do after he’s signed the contract??

You’re saying in October they shouldn’t have offered him a contract in January. It’s retrospective analysis.

And they’d also have had to sign someone else to fill a TH spot; maybe they tried and just didn’t have the budget.

Other provinces just don’t have the same depth Leinster have. That’s just the reality of it.

Sometimes teams sign guys. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. It really feels like nitpicking.

would it matter?

Yes; under the safety rules, you need a substitute who is able to play TH to be able to name a 23 and play the game.

Without him, you’re down to a first year academy player on the bench, and one suspension / injury away from being unable to legally name a 23. (In practice, an AIL player would be called in, but that’s hardly a desired outcome either; the cure is worse than the disease, to put it one way).

but there has to be a limit to how long you keep a guy around if you've kind of decided he isn't going to make the grade

He’s 24 next month. He's not Methusulah.

Ben Betts

I see....

That Ulster game as well, Sean French was on the other wing making his first start, which made it all the more impressive.

The other thing going against Haley tho is his lack of versatility in that he only covers 15.

Crowley is surely likely to start start this weekend?

Over the next 3 weeks, there's a chance he could be looking at starting v Ulster, benching v the All Blacks XV, and starting v the South Africa XV, all at 10. That's certainly what I'd love to see.

I dunno, even without the versatility, I think I'd slightly favour Lowry; he's a better fit for the gameplan we're currently. (If it was under Schmidt, I think Haley would be a better fit).

Keenan pretty much combines the best parts of Haley with the best parts of Lowry, imo. Class player to be fair.

...the forwards got owned for periods of the game against a Leinster pack who were not near full strength.

They probably had 4 of their starting pack, and another 2 off the bench. They weren't a million miles away from full strength either to be fair, and it's not like the other guys like Alaalatoa and Penny are pushovers.

I'd largely agree with you with regards the front-row, tho. We need to get minutes into Knox and Salanoa badly this year. And Josh Wycherly too, on the evidence of Killer's start to the season. I think Loughman is probably our starting LH now. I think Scannell is serviceable, and that the other 2 positions are bigger issues (and Barron is pretty good cover for now too; he made a great break in this game and might start pushing Scannell for the starting jersey).

Second row and back-row, I think we're pretty ok in once Snyman comes back (Snyman, Kleyn, Ahern and Beirne is perfectly good and Snyman would free up Beirne to move to 6 too, leaving us with POM, Beirne, Hodnett, Kendellen, Gav Coombes as the top tier guys (again, once Beirne and Kendellen are back from injury).

I think that's pretty solid tbh, but after that the quality does seem to dip. (E.g. They're both injured at the moment, but I'd much rather see Kendellen getting minutes ahead of JOS, say, if both were fit).

As an aside, with Fineen's new contract, I'm wondering if we'll see him feature a bit more at 6 going forward. It could suit him.

Sure Snyman IF he gets back and IF he gets up to speed would make a decent engine with kleyn and beirne & POM with one of jod/hodnett/coombes is a decent backrow but experience says that injury is not going to have that combination on the field for any length of time

Ya, I accept the point about injuries (and it is a pretty big point to be fair) but..

4) Snyman

5) Beirne / Kleyn

6) POM / Beirne

7) Kendellen / POM / Hodnett

8) Coombes

... that's more than just decent. If we can get some combination of that on the field, I think that's a pretty high calibre back-5.