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

Jesus it'll be hard to keep a lid on the hype now.

Technically no Gloucester player scored against Leinster over the two legs.

Great result, lots to work on too which isn't the worst outcome from the game. We'll really need Jenkins fit for the latter rounds, he's irreplaceable in our mail defence

Leinster played quite well, but there's still better to come, I think. Our set piece without Jenkins isn't as strong, but when he's present it's a huge strength.

Our rolling maul, which is already quite good, becomes even better. Our maul defence gets so much better when he's there and I don't think we concede those penalties trys.

What sort of team will leinster put out against racing next weekend do we reckon? Full strength or more of a mix?

McBryde should be canned! This is a recurring problem with the scrum. Either the lads are shyte and can't scrum, or it's him.

How does Porter go from an international class tight head to being a liability on the loosehead side. Utterly mind-boggling how a front row of 3 international players, crap their jocks.

Aside from that it was a good outing.

3 new euro caps! Congratulations Deeny, Milne and the "sparkplug" Turner. Great experience for them.

Ridiculous performance from Osborne. He can do it all really.

I think how good a front row forward is in the loose is WAY more important than the scrum. Both carrying and at the breakdown. Porter and Sheehan are two of the best at the world at those things.

Exeter's loss against Bulls makes things very straightforward for Leinster. A non try bonus win against Racing will be enough to finish top of Pool A.

Leinster are on 15 points, Sharks are on 14 points and Saracens can only get to 14 points at most even with a BP win tomorrow.

Milne reminds me a bit of Josh Wycherly at Munster. Always love what they do in the loose but hard to deny that they have weakness in the scrum.

However, its not normal for props to be at their power and scrummaging peak at 23. I think a few more seasons of play, and a few more offseasons to get stronger/work on technical stuff… and he will be very handy.

One of the commentators mentioned that Lowe was back in New Zealand due to personal reasons. Wish him the best.

Thought Ryan had another super game. He's focused a lot on adding the dirty stuff to his skill set. He's a massive nuisance at the ruck and a pretty physical presence in the fight exchanges.

But today he carried well, hit the line at speed, offloaded and was used as a link option when passing. I think this is the best he has ever played.

The Leinster maul conceded two penalty tries. He has to be a leader in that area.