Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

If there was any concern about Ryan I'm not surprised they didn't want to risk Moloney as I believe they're first and second choice lineout callers. They also probably wanted to keep some of the partnerships together, especially the ones that don't spend time in Irish camp

Gutted at the result. Agree with others that the team picked was too weak. I just don't think it was necessary to take the risk.

Munster were the better side and I hope they win the final but again I do think Leinster were hard done by from the ref. I just cannot understand from an optics perspective how that appointment was allowed. URC just leaving themselves open.

Strangely, I'm very confident about Saturday. I might look silly with this prediction come Saturday night but I can see us winning comfortably.

Yea, definitely in 23. I meant would you keep him on bench for that impact or start him.

I think the 23 needed to be slightly stronger. I've no issue with the starting team. It was largely what was expected and was good enough to do their job. But the bench was very weak overall. Connors going off injured didn't help at all as any bench impact from VDF was removed from proceedings entirely.

But in the closing 10-15 minutes, the only guys we had available to bring on were Clarkson, Turner and Nick McCarthy. That's not good enough in that intensity of game. I genuinely believe that if one of RB, JGP or Ringrose were on the bench, they'd have been the difference between winning and losing. There would have been enough experience and leadership from them to ensure there was a calmer approach in that final 10.

I can see both sides of the argument. Cullen went with a team that he felt had enough to get it done and they very nearly did but he certainly rolled the dice a little with some calls and it didn't work out.

The Connors injury was particularly costly as not only did it mean there was no back row sub for the entire game but VDF and Conan went for 80 minutes and put in big shifts (49 tackles between them). VDF in particular was banged up at the end and limping heavily in the closing minutes. It's this sort of thing that makes me think Cullen won't be losing any sleep over his selection and, if Penny was available, I'd say he might have been on the bench ahead of VDF.

Salanoa was very soft there.. :)

Resale option is available now. The transfer function is still disabled though.

One other aspect of the game I hope Leisnter improve on from last year is the use of the bench.

O'Gara puts particular attention on using it and i expect he will empty his entire bench before we are in the last 10 minutes.

Leinster last year. Never Brought on Frawley and Luke mcgrath and Joe mccarthy got 3 minutes each.

in what is expected to be a brusing game the benches could decide the game.

No point in putting someone on the bench if you are not willing to use them.

Will the teams be announced on Thursday this week? Can't wait for Saturday now, gonna be a slow week.

It's kind of a false stats though, I watched the game back in full and every time we made it into their half without fail they'd get pinged for a penalty and then Sexton would be overly aggressive and send through a useless grubber on advantage, then at that point we would go for 3 points sticking us right back in our own half with the ball needing to clear. Whenever they got the ball they just ran with one out runners, which wasn't really effective at all against our defence, the winner was scored because their player slipped just when Ringrose was going to mince him, then he jumped over the line to score. We defended their one out runners very very well, Skelton had 18 carries and made 23 metres I think, 8 of those metres were from a single carry at the half way line where they batted a ball back from a box kick and he had open field to run into.

Doris also neutralised all of their big runners last year, he was phenomenal at 6. Held up so many balls, slowed down so much of their ruck ball. He wasn't trusted to carry the ball as much as he did against Toulouse but I think that's one area of our game where we have improved, Doris getting 3 or 4 yards on an awkward carry in midfield then quick ball from the ruck.

We lost the game because La Rochelle, similar to Munster on Saturday managed to keep the ball in our 22 with an almost constant penalty advantage. This meant of the 3 turnovers we managed to get in the last 10 minutes didn't count for anything due to penalty advantage. Barnes was never giving us anything in the last 10 minutes and we did very poorly at ruck time in those 10. Our scrum was also a penalty factory for La Rochelle.

Simple game plan for next weekend I think, keep the ball in play, make sure we don't get isolated or knock the ball on and finally and most importantly keep the territory in their half. They're really poor at exiting their half and give away cheap penalties because they'll take the 3 points against them every day of the weak.