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

But it is the fault of the competition. Gloucester can do what they did tonight because the tournament is flawed. The competition is structured that you can lose three of your four pool games and still qualify for the knockouts, which is ludicrous.

It's ridiculous to have hookers that can do this.

Sonny Billy Sheehan.

I know Connacht were the only ones with three losses but Connacht, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Stade Francis and Clermont all got through with one win. That doesn't scream "must-win" pool games. I take your point that Gloucester are to blame for putting out a team to be whipped, but if every game was "must-win", it wouldn't have happened. Gloucester saw Leinster away, assumed they wouldn't win, knew that winning wasn't a requirement, so took a loss before the game started. And when you can do that in the second pool game, that's a fault with the competition.

Nobody is claiming the games are "must win". That wasn't even the case under the old structure. My point is that surrendering a game (and a team in fourth in the Premiership looking at any game and assuming they wouldn't win tells its own story, imo) will almost certainly come back to bite Gloucester in the arse. And even if they do qualify, scraping an away R16 / QF game against top seeds is all but surrendering the tournament a game or two later anyway. So there's clear signs that they just don't value the competition, compared to the other sides, so good luck to them.

Do you even like rugby? 😄

Seriously?

With the older format you rarely had teams shipping big losses and/or losing most of their games and still making the KOs. This format facilitates teams throwing games more than any other format that I’ve seen, because teams won’t necessarily be punished too much for it. 9 of the 12 games last week were TBP wins. Every single win in Pool A was a TBP win. In 14 games so far we’ve already had 4 absolute trouncings. After the first round we had 3 clubs on a large negative PD and 0 points on the table. And they can all still realistically make the KOs. If all you need is 1 win and a few BPs then it just cheapens the pool stages.

Are you saying unless there is knockout from the very first game then the tournament is worthless? Hard to follow that point your making really.

No matter what format you dream up teams can always throw a game if it suits them.

I think the difference with this format is that it’s a lot easier with this format to throw a game and still go through.

I know it was technically possible in old format, but I can’t remember it really happening because an away quarter final was such a tough ask. So if team had enough in hand to throw a match, they’d prefer to try and push for home QF.

what grinds my gears about all this salary cap stuff, when the shoe was on the other foot and the English clubs were spending big, it was never mentioned as a huge advantage for the English teams. But now, a lot of the Jim Hamiltons of this world are screaming about it.

Just popping over to say well done Leinster. Delighted ye nilled Gloucester last night. European rugby won't forget that for a while.

He's good alright. And so physical. Gave away his customary stupid penalty though, he just flopped into the tackle area late, and then was caught not rolling away.

I wat he'd the highlights. I couldn't be bothered watching the entire spectacle. Good to see Larmour back. I hope he can get a run of injury free matches.

Gloucester should be embarrassed. English rugby should be embarrassed. It's farcical and poor form. I expect Munster to wallop the perverbial snot out of the Saints, what will the pundits bitch about then? The S.A teams will be the biggest hurdle alongside Toulouse, Sarries and LAR.

Shocking state of affairs. People paid money to watch this crap. Utter shite from Gloucester. I suppose Ulsters complete capitulation to Sale will be the English leagues focal point. The tournament is not being taken seriously by some teams