Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Skimming back through the game I gotta say Harry was very very good. Looking more and more like the player he was on his upward trajectory a few seasons back.

Flawless off the tee, bullishly physical in D and when he moved to 12 too. I think someone like Ngatais value is fully apparent playing outside someone like Harry. Took a lot on himself too when required.

In terms of managing the game it was a mature performance too from HB. Tried to play in the right areas. Looked to exploit Mapimpis wing when he was off - which resulted in the lovely cross field kick.

There is significant merit in starting him against Munster IMO. But I think the smart money is on Ross starting.

Tough one for Leo et al to manage this week. How best do you rotate the squad to be at their peak for LAR while still performing against Munster. TBH Ross is one of the players I'd be less worried about coming in "cold". He's been the orchestrator in chief for Leinster this season

LAR took the absolute piss at ruck time last season. We're the furthest thing from saints on the matter but they did it to a whole new level.

Extremely smart play by them but with the sheer size of their lads lying the wrong side of the ball or coming in at funny angles it was definitely the difference maker for them last year.

It was very much par the course of how Barnes refs the game though.

Peyper is cut from a similar cloth I feel.

LAR are that bit wilier in their ruck shenanigans and Jaco will suit them better I feel

I watched the game again because it's been the guts of a year since and time can be really helpful when I'm trying to suppress memories...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oWgE1jWqZY

And I'm actually a bit raging watching it back. We were absolutely hard done by at the breakdown.

We had 2 extremely soft pens for not rolling away in the first half. Player clearly trapped in there and no material impact on the speed of the ruck. It was just slow ball. Fine - can live with those. But for LAR to not get pinged once for the same offence was just one eyed. Literally the entire game they weren't penalised for not rolling. There was 64 Leinster rucks that day. Balance of probability does not stack up that they rolled away from every single one.

Second half we notably changed our ruck efforts off the back of these pens. Leave em alone. The issue there was LAR got lightning quick ball and STILL weren't pinged for not rolling despite multiple instances of it

Then Molony gets pinged for not rolling when big Mike gets a clear as day steal. That was a CALAMITOUS decision. Especially when you factor in LAR got 3 points straight after half time for the exact same thing. Tackler prevented a proper clear out on the (from the side) jackaler. Ross in no way impacted the clear out of Big Mike. Absolute shocker there. From there the ball didn't leave the 22 for the next 8 minutes until the final whistle.

And THEN to allow LAR away with pre latches and sealing from there on in was just diabolical. 37 phases LAR had from the pen on 72 mins to the try they scored. 30 of these were pick and jams. This was negative kick **** rugby with LAR swimming on top of their ball carrier in 7 difference instances that I could see.

While I'm still **** on the ref. Aldritt was allowed to twice play the arm of JGP despite being nowhere near on his feet. Like not even close.

So looking at it.... I don't think Peyper let's a team do what LAR did for 8 minutes like that.

And just to balance it out because it wasn't all down to Barnes... we were just inaccurate that day. We had 4 entries to their 22 and came away with no tries. Leinster scored a try in every game last season except for this one. Stuff just did not click. LAR shut us down in the right areas and the big moments you need to go your way in a final just did not go our way.

We also could count ourselves lucky in the scrum. I think we definitely got away with a few