Leinster v Munster URC Semi -Final match thread

Cool, we'll just ignore the part where he's off the ground before he actually makes contact with Crowley so.

I think the first was cynical but maybe just under the threshold for a yellow, but the deliberate knock on was by the same player in a similar area of the pitch only a few minutes later, so for repeated cynical play, that should have bumped it up to a yellow. Both of those snuffed out Munster attacks.

Doesn't really matter except as a counter to those who think Murphy rode Leinster.

Some of the calls against Leinster weren't even from Murphy, the disallowed Baird try for example was purely from Ben Whitehouse.

Get thee to a law book.

You're not on your feet unless you're supporting your bodyweight with your feet.

And you are not even allowed to attempt a tackle when you're off your feet.

If that's the standard required to reestablish yourself as on your feet, I conceed the point.

I fully accept it, if that's the case. It didn't look functionally different from a chip tackle in form.

Why feed the jackalope?

IT reports Healy’s penalty was over 60 seconds and should have been disallowed

I haven’t really but sober me might be able to construct a post more reflective of how I feel.

Firstly Munster very much deserved the victory. Their defence was stifling. They brought a level of physicality and aggression we haven’t seen from them in a long time in this fixture. Their willingness to fight to get back on their feet and get back in the line was brilliant through out. Also they made **** of our ruck ball without having to commit numbers. Big kudos goes to Crowley that was a big decision and he nailed it.

I didn’t think Munsters attack looked great yesterday. Maybe if I watch it back it might look different. I thought Healy was a bit Headless and he got caught a couple of times because of his indecision. Crowley improved things I thought when he went to 10. However it was a day for defences and since for most of the game, the offside law didn’t exist. It was always going to be difficult to create much in attack.

Frank Murphy was atrocious yesterday and completely one sided in how he refereed the game. In what was an incredibly evenly matched game. He penalized Leinster more than twice as much as he did Munster. If there was a huge amount of pressure, then that would make sense but there wasn’t. Both teams had periods of dominance but nothing sustained. He penalized Munster 3 times in the first 3 minutes. Then only twice in the next 77 minutes. That just makes no sense. Munsters scrum collapsed after Whycherly came on. Yet for all the scrum dominance it only yielded one penalty. The Munster front row just stood up in every scrum. As the Munster fan in front of me said. This is payback for Rolland.

That Munster deserved to win and Frank Murphy was a joke, can both be true at the same time.

Nice for my post to have stuck with you. For actual context:

As you'll see, I never said it barely registered with me, I value the URC and wanted them to win the game and have more of their starters in the team to help them do so.

It didn't register for either Leinster or the fans. Leinster gambled because their priority is next week, things didn't go their way, and they lost. Fans are trying to beg, borrow, or steal for tickets to next week and despite Munster helping to fill up the ground it didn't even fill the reduced capacity.

Munster celebrations might not have been quite play worthy but not too far off, with Munster players in tears after beating the Leinster B side.

Fair enough. Let me amend that to if the ref is letting it go at the breakdown like Murphy was, you are more likely to get penalties with the ball. He was only giving the most obvious of penalties and most of those (like not rolling away) are easier to manufacture with the ball.

Can anyone explain to me Murphy's logic in just giving a penalty in Connors incident? It was impossible to tell due to commentary - did he even look at it on the big screen?

Going through the head contact process - Murphy believed it was foul play so then you look at the degree of danger and that should be high due to it being direct to the jaw from a swinging arm. Then look at mitigation, the tackler has good line of sight, tackler stays pretty upright into the tackle, Connors doesn't suddenly or significantly change height, and a swinging arm isn't passive.

That's really my point.

It looks like Munster didn't care, they didn't show the desire to show that he was wanted. Any attempt to deflect any blame* to IRFU or Farrell is just nonsense.

*I don't believe there is blame, there shouldn't any regarding a backup moving abroad