Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Think Russell should be ahead of Larmour in the pecking order at this stage

It's a real shame. He took a long time to really deliver on his talent but he got there in the end. Under Farrell, he was probably playing the best rugby of his career. He appeared to be an incredibly coachable player. When he came on the scene, he was an out and out speedster. He was also seen as something of a liability in other areas of his game.

But you could see the improvements he made in specific areas of his game as he worked with different coaches. His defence came along hugely at Munster. His chasing and rucking went to another level when brought in to the Irish squad to suit Schmidt's game. And his kicking game was at the best level it ever was just before the injuries ruined him. His two 50/22 kicks in Twickenham were things of beauty.

If Clarkson can't get it done at scrumtime with that second row behind him, I'll have serious worries about using him as even depth in the future.

Sure is. I think people sleep on how big Will Connors actually is too. Leinster bill him as 6'5" which I think is generous but I do believe he's 6'3/6'4 for sure which would make him a taller openside I would say and Culhane is again subject to the famed generous stat inflation of the Leinster site at 113kgs which would make him heavier than Conan and Doris and nearing Gav Coombes ~116kg weight which I don't feel is accurate.

But there's no denying he's a big lad all the same. Especially for having just gone 21

Here's Will with Jack Dunne who was around 6'7/6'8 so can well believe he's near 6'5. Either way Will is a class athlete and a tackling machine. He was first choice 7 for Ireland and Leinster before his injury and VDFs form.

You wonder what these new players who've been called upon during this period are going to do with themselves when the internationals come back in and there's very restricted gametime for most of them. Of course some things they can go away and work on in training will have been highlighted for them. But in a lot of cases extra gametime is what would benefit them - in the cases of players like Deeny, Jack Boyle, Ben Murphy, and others who didn't even get a look in, like Cosgrave and Brownlee.

Would a full extra set of interpros, playing all the other Provinces home and away during the five 6N weekends and finding one extra weekend somewhere make sense? Could they combine the results with the URC interpros results for a sort of Irish Championship? I know there's this Saracens friendly scheduled, but one game isn't going to make much impact.