URC Round 8: Munster vs. Leinster - 26/12/2023

Looks like tickets for this are already sold out, is it sold to full capacity? Should be a great event.

Not that he's a particularly poor referee but I don't like Brace generally in games I watch. Normally has a very high penalty count and will whistle a team off the park at the breakdown.

For context, in his three games at the RWC, Australia, Samoa and Namibia (the losing teams) were whistled 18, 14 and 13 times respectively. Similarly, Saracens were done 18 times in their ECC knock out against La Rochelle last season. He's an unsympathetic referee which leads to an extremely stilted game with a lot of stoppages.

Hopefully Leinster are on their best behaviour (which they absolutely haven't been this season to date) and select guys who can adjust to the interpretations.

In terms of team selection, Cullen has indicated that Leinster will send a stronger team south than those sent in recent years. The below selection featured last Christmas. Not a bad team at all but I recall that the expectation was the bench was very weak and would probably be the difference:

Leinster: Keenan; Larmour, Ringrose (capt), Osborne, Lowe; R Byrne, N McCarthy; Porter, Sheehan, Healy; Baird, J McCarthy; Ruddock, Penny, Deegan.

Replacements: McKee, Milne, Abdaladze, Molony, Conan, McGrath, H Byrne, Turner.

Probably needs context that guys like Osborne, Penny, Joe McCarthy and arguably Baird weren't as highly rated a year ago as they are now. Nick McCarthy was a very weak option for such a game though in a key position and the bench front row was callow in the extreme.

I'd guess we try to do a bit of mix and match for the two interpros, with all Irish players starting one or the other. For the Munster game, I'd be happy with something along the lines of:

Keenan, Larmour, Henshaw, Frawley, Lowe, Byrne, JGP, Conan, Connors, Deegan, Jenkins (back issue pending), Ryan, Ala'alatoa, Kelleher, Healy.

From a Munster perspective, their injury update yesterday didn't speak too positively for additional returnees. POM appears to have had a minor set back in his recovery and is very much up in the air for this one. Edogbo seems to be closer to a return which would be a big boost as JOD went off injured at the weekend and, if he's ruled out, Commbes will surely revert to 8.

While Brace is probably the best technical referee in Ireland (which his International involvements point to) I just can't get behind his tone when speaking to the players.

Rightly or wrongly rugby has too much of a subjective set of rules (making it near impossible to ref in fairness) but as a result whenever a ref penalises for something there is a conceivable argument that the pen could have gone the other way.

Brace has too much of a tendency to err on the side of "I'm right you're wrong" tone which consistently leads to poor rapport with the players

I think Münster would be better off picking Rory Scannell at 12. Nankivell looks a bit out of synch with Frisch. Scannell is underrated, I feel, and always seems to play well against Leinster. He gets the Lifeimi Mafi treatment a bit - Munster always trying to sign players to play ahead of him.

Since this thread is currently lacking on spice, I think its time to play a game of...

IS JOE MCCARTHY REALLY THAT GOOD? A (SOMEWHAT) DETAILED ANALYSIS:

Last week, I promise one @[Deleted User] that I would re-watch Leinster v La Rochelle, IN FULL, with a focus solely on Joe McCarthy, in order to answer one bold question: Was this "the most promising performance by a young second row in recent memory"?

The layers of added spice have a fiery effect when you consider that two promising young second rows in good form are also playing in the Munster team this Stephen's Day. I'm sure there will inevitably be a Penny/Hodnett comparison made, but it won't be me doing it!

But lets get back to the key consideration at hand - Joe McCarthy vs La Rochelle.

WARNING: This is long; I try to look at basically everything he did in this game.

I am using this video in case people want to cross reference any points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCoJCHiw7tE&ab_channel=RUGBYREPUBLIC

The analysis can be found above. Time stamps are from the match clock, not the YouTube video's time. Immediately, it gives rise to some interesting observations.

• One thing which was heavily praised by certain individuals in the Leinster thread was his Maul Defence. However, his maul defence was actually quite mixed across the board. If anything, his counter lifting (working with Baird as a counter jumper) was far more impressive from a lineout defence perspective than his maul work.
• Lots of grunt work, to be expected from a tighthead second row. Made for very interesting viewing and data tracking, I can assure you :/.
• His major negative contributions come in two main forms: penalties (a well documented criticism of his) and missed tackles. He brings excellent linespeed which doesn't come across in this purely stats based analysis; however he shoots up without setting his feet which means he often misses initial hits leaving the backrows hunting inside him to clean up the mess. Some could argue that this is by design, but other plays (notably Baird, I found) were able to bring linespeed AND make their first up hits behind the gainline, so I'm inclined to view it as a net negative.
• The spacing of the timestamps are interesting too - he does seem to come in bursts rather than being a totallic presence throughout the game. For example: each of his "dominant" first half carries are after four-to-five minute spells of inactivity. Obviously, some of this is down to kick-tennis happening during these periods, but there are other occasions where he is out of action either due to sucking diesel or placing himself wider in the defensive line (which on the rainy day it was in LAR, the ball never really got out that wide all too often).
• I have omitted scrums from the picture. Some argued that him scrummaging against Skelton was another thing to factor into account. In fact, McCarthy was scrummaging on Wardi/Allalatoa's side of the scrum, which was rarely problematic from a scrum penalty perspective. The real battle seemed to be Antonio/Skelton v Porter/Ryan.

Overall, is it the most promising performance from a young long in recent memory? I still think not. In fact, I'd argue Baird's performance in the same game was, upon re-watch, far more impressive than McCarthy's, albeit in the six jersey. As for my own claim, which was that he is "more liability than asset", that was probably the opposite extreme and a bit harsh. Indeed, from tallying up the total net positive/neutral/negative contributions, it would appear on this particular day, he was actually equal parts asset and liability (something which I did not have planned and I had a good chuckle at once I counted up all the colours).

Is the potential there? Absolutely. But he is not there yet for me.

Obviously, some of the attributions of positive/negative/neutral are open for discussion. I tried to grade his contributions in line with how sports analysts actually do the stats. Naturally, some will argue that some neutrals should be positive (and vice versa) and some negatives should be neutral (and vice versa) but I tried my best to be impartial in my analysis. Some stuff was on the edge (example: the 3:30 tackle on Skelton could've been a positive, while the 40:20 LAR turnover could've been a negative), but where there was doubt, I tended to opt for neutral.

Ultimately, while my view on McCarthy's performance probably went up after re-watch, I still don't think it was anywhere near the level some were claiming.

Discuss.

P.S. COME ONNNNN MUNSTER :P

You've literally been playing a 2nd row in the back row for the last 4 weeks.