Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread XII (The Byrne Supremacy)

The answer is for the players to stop **** the bed, unfortunately. There's only so much a coach can do to prepare them, at the end of the day, he's in the stands.

Got a chance to watch the Connacht game back in some detail yesterday. Solid win if not spectacular largely tempered by the fact that Connacht were abysmal. Any one of their coaches could potentially be in line to lose their job but it ultimately needs to land at Wilkins' door.

Leinster went into the game looking to throw it around and run up a bit of a score, I feel. And because of that, they were very wasteful at times. I think they tried trick plays on the line out 5 times during the game with short pops to the front which largely ended with us losing the ball. If we had held onto it and gone out to midfield for a recycle, we probably would have had the BP sorted by half time. Going 40 minutes without a score was a concern, to be honest. There was (again) a shift in pattern after the break with far more box kicking and looking to shut the game down. It was noticeable how much less ball the backline saw after the break.

Halfbacks were good. Foley is still very slow at the base but has ability. But if he can't speed that up, he'll be a poor man's Conor Murray (35 year old Murray, not 25 year old Murray). Prendergast showed a few nice touches and looked fairly comfortable. Wasn't tested at all defensively really although he fell off one on the narrow side in the second half that led to a half break. Showed enough to suggest he's ready to be more of a fixture in the 23 next season at the least.

Molony got the emotional call but JOB was excellent again aside from one sliced kick and spilling an unsympathetic offload in the first half. He looked dangerous and a cut above when he had the ball. I thought the departing guys looked really good. For my money, Ed Byrne has been hard done by. Any time he plays, he goes well. If any of our other props did the job he did on Bealham, we'd be hearing a lot more about it. Thought he was excellent and showed well in the loose also. Thought Ruddock was very good around the park during his time on the field. Always been a model blindside, won line out ball, made a rake of tackles and turned slow, crap ball into go forward ball. Thought Ngatai looked fairly unfit but could see his rugby brain is still more instinctive than 90% of the Leinster squad. Saved a near certain try from the full back position when he delayed committing to their carrier and then stepped in, forcing a knock on at the last second. He then went on a pick and go for about 30-40m upfield before Connacht could reset and played scrum half then at the breakdown. It's a huge shame that he is so injury prone as he's genuinely a class act. I'd have had him starting last week if he was fully fit.

On the less positive side, Rob Russell seems to have stagnated a bit. He looks like a confidence player and once he made that error against Ulster, expecting a whistle, he has looked wobbly. A couple more errors at the weekend didn't help. Milne was also someone I really am unconvinced by. Came on for 30 minutes, scrum dominance disappeared and conceded two lazy breakdown penalties. Given Ed Byrne is still only 30, I'd happily be holding onto him ahead of Milne although finances may have been a part of that.

It pains me greatly to say this but the one thing that underlines those losses (and I include NZ) is big game performances and big game strategy.

The Leinster and Ireland team had lots of heroic performances but invariably 'The Rocky Elsom' impact performances were on the other sides. They also had better strategy and identified weaknesses and exploited them. Sometimes glaringly.

I'm not convinced at all with Nienaber and winning the URC (which they could even do with Prendergast playing 10) is not going to change my opinion.

If the price is right, I'm ok with Slimani. He's 35 in the autumn and actually a smaller guy than Ala'alatoa but he's a solid scrummager and has held his own against the best including going well against the Sharks first choice front row a few weeks ago.

But I wouldn't want him for more than a year. It's a case of trying to extrapolate as much scrummaging information and expertise out of him in a 12 month window if he arrives and then move him on. He still has some legs (1,500 minutes this season over 31 games) so will hopefully be available for a solid chunk of the season if he arrives.

Steady on. This is not the place for such a sensible, measured, and rational comment.

Andrew Brace to ref Saturdays game..

One question is, is Nienaber a proven winner or the assistant to a proven winner?

His job title might have been head coach of the Boks but I don’t think anyone believes he was calling too many shots.

I still think our biggest weakness is on field leadership. Losing Sexton and then seeing both co-captains have their season decimated by injury hasn’t helped, but we need players to start showing something here.

Yeah, happy enough with Brace..

Blocking specifically Tipou would be insanely nit picky from the irfu imo.

Add to that, this is a must-win game for any hope of silverware. Mentality will be very different to a game they wanted but didn't need to win.

I think Leinster will win comfortably on the scoreboard.

The Leinster team in the RDS was a good mixture of firsts and seconds, and played in wet conditions which suited the better pack. leinsters starting pack was Healy, Sheehan, Clarkson, Jenkins, McCarthy, Baird, Connors and Doris, with VDF, molony, conan, big mike and boyle from the bench.

It was a decent Leinster team (pretty callow in the backs), but going back to a point I made yesterday about continuity; only three of the Leinster XV started the previous match (against Munster), versus 10 for Ulster against Connacht. And 11 of the Ulster team had started the game before that, against Racing.

Ciaran Frawley was the only Leinster player to start all three matches in that same window, but he did so at 10, 12 and 15, and a different out-half started each game for Leinster, none of whom were our actual first-choice OH.

This has to take a toll on team performance.

And now, assuming we go full-strength against Ulster, maybe only JOB will start from the XV that started against Connacht, possibly Osborne if it's a week too soon for Ringrose.

Edit: I still expect us to win, just an observation that it's not ideal.

I think the IRFU were afraid of further backlash that they would receive if Leinster were to land 3 superstars in one season. They did put Leinster in a very difficult decision. Leinster desperately needed a replacement for Michael Ala'alatoa, they also knew that Leinster desperately wanted to bring in an extra piece off the bench who would compliment Nienaber's "bomb squad" Tupou would have been the perfect person to bring on for 30 minutes in the 2nd half and physically beat up the opponent. The same can be said for Snyman. With them two monstering teams alongside the already well established Leinster bench, Leinster would have been a completely different animal next season.

At the end of the day, the IRFU probably had to keep the other provinces happy by being seen to actively say no to Leinster on Tupou.

They're getting picked for Ireland because they're the best players in the country