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

Nick Mc Carthy was fairly good. Harry played well also.

In general, I think Leinsters maul defence has proved quite a bit this season. Ryan has made strides in that facet of his game. But in the absence of Jenkins I think we'll always struggle to stop sides whose strong points are in the maul, one of whom is actually Gloucester.

Twice in a row ahead of one of those he put himself up at the line out and was miles off getting near it. All he succeeded in doing was taking himself out of the game and making it easier on Gloucester to form the maul and have a go at us. There are still parts of his decision making that needs work IMO.

In my opinion, our scrum is a weakness and has been for a while. In saying that, it's common amongst the provinces. Ulster scrummaged very well today!

Rewatching the match and I reckon we looked more stable with Kelleher. Healy did very well. Jenkins was missed, I agree.

Our forwards are incredible. The athleticism is 2nd to none. All of them are savage. I don't disagree. I would hope that we do get the scrum going better. McBryde doesn't seem to be getting as much from the scrum? The bigger sides will target the scrum. They will feel confident and it also slows the match down. Leinster want a high speed, quick ruck mobile game.

2nd viewing really shows how good Keenan is! This lad is class! He took Thorley to school on that try. His 50th cap too. He's pushing my opinion of him up towards world class.

So we qualified, what strength do we go with next week?

I think the thing that people are missing/not weighing heavily enough is that Irish teams and Leinster are making choices in academy selection and retention, and scrummaging is not high on the list of attributes. Not for front row or lockd. Of course, they will take someone like Furlong or McCarthy who has pretty much every tool. But, I’m sure there were guys who could have come into the academy who projected to be better scrummagers than Milne or Deeny, for example. But, what’s the point of that. As long, as by the time they are playing big roles in big games that they get to just basic competence, they will be fine.

Scrum dominance rarely wins games, and the kind of scrum dominance that does rarely win games (like the 2019 world cup) is unattainable in the profile of our player pool. If we (ireland) try to build teams so we don’t get beat on the rare occasion a ref allows a scrum to decide a game…. Then we will lose many more games where the breakdown, the lineout and work in the loose decides games.

So, i get the worry that there is this great team with an achilles heel. But, firstly its an achilles heel that very rarely loses a game. And secondly, you dont build a great team like this in an irish system without accepting some kind of weakness in the pursuit of being as good as possible at the important things.

Thirdly, Jenkins will help a ton when he comes back .

There is a pretty clear blue print on how you beat Leinster emerging over the last few games.

Go after the scrum

Target the lineout to remove that platform for attack

Make a mess of the ruck

It's more a question if a team can do these things to Leinster or not.

Jenkins and furlong could help point one

You'd imagine baird selection ahead of Conan is to address point 2

Referee interpretation and our own accuracy can address point three. Hopefully being home for the remainder of the tournament (assuming a good result next week) helps with some of those breakdown calls. Typically home team gets the calls (as Munster and ospreys both did)

Reason to be optimistic, reasons to be cautious

Talking to a lot of the Gloucester fans they were amazed at the pace we played at. Said it’s like a completely different game to the premiership. Felt that they couldn’t compete with it at all. That I guess is the trade off from having a Mike Ross type player, trotting around the pitch and locking out the scrum.

I don’t see how people think we got completely mullered in the scrum either. Teams that are getting completely done in at scrum time. Don’t choose scrums off free kicks and then score off them.

The town isn’t much to write home about. Typical post industrial town in the UK I would guess. The people and the Gloucester fans are absolutely lovely though. Some of the nicest fans I’ve come across anywhere. Real proper rugby town.

Someone on LF reviewed the scrums in the game. Gloucester won 4 pens from the scrum and we won 3. They won 2 free kicks, we won 2 free kicks. Milne gave away 2 penalties when he was on. He’s our 4th choice LH so that’s no big deal.

The other point in the post though was that we focused on getting the ball out and attacking off our scrums, making serious yardage in the process. They looked to keep the ball in the scrum and looked for the penalties.

Ultimately Porter gave away 1 pen and Big Mike another. Milne, as I said, gave up the other 2. But overall the scrum was a weapon for us in terms of using it as a platform to attack off. It wasn’t the issue people are making out at all.

https://www.leinsterfans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=819455#p819455

It's worth noting we didn't have a real tight head lock on the field.

We also had our second choice tight head.

Our second choice loosehead was our sub tighthead and our 4th choice loosehead was our sub loosehead.

It's worth noting as well that we prefer footballers to scrummagers in our front row. We will never have an elite scrum because of that but its never humiliated especially when our first choice is available.

It's worth noting that we are very reliant on Big Mike as second choice tighthead and his contract is rumoured to be up this season. He needs to be extended or replaced as a matter of urgency.

Great performance yesterday, proud of the boys in blue!

How good was that slap pass from RB for the Keenan try

It was beautiful.

I'm no rugby knowledge guru but I think he's the second best oh in Ireland. Might not suit irelands style, but you know what you get.

Cracking defender as well.

Everyone is beatable!