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

How many front liners are the Bulls missing?

Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse?

Crowley is a full 3 years older than prendergast.

For some perspective. If Sam plays this weekend he will have played more games for Leinster this season, his first year out of u20, than Crowley played for Munster in his first 2 years out of under 20's. At the same point of Crowleys development he had 3 munster caps ff the bench where Sam has 16 caps already with 4 or 5 starts and 3 games in Europe.

And that is in a squad with more competition for game time at 10 than Crowley would have come into.

IMHO barring injury Sam will be Leinster starter by the time he turns 21 and as a result Irelands number 2.

Sam turned 21 in Feb.

Did Leinster offer contracts to Berman and De Klerk?

Surprised we're letting two seemingly talented centres just leave. De Klerk especially looked good for the u20's. Great passing range.

Nope, Berman did two years sub academy no offer. De Klerk did one.

Great seeing Ringrose in the team. Seems we really did just hold him back from playing against Ulster.

That's a really strong 23 overall. Thought we may have gone 6-2, but I guess there's probably still some concerns over Ringrose.

Bulls have lost a very impressive once at home this season in all comps and only 3 times in 2 seasons at home in all comps.

Their sole defeat of this season came against Munster on 20th April in an impressive showing with both teams fully locked and loaded. But it took a Goosen red card on 50 and a 73rd minute score for Munster to win it.

Nobody beats the Bulls by much at home. Indeed the 3 games they've lost on home soil over the last 2 seasons have been by a combined points total of 13 points….

Pretoria is a fortress. Altitude is a great leveller and they are a hard nosed team that are tough to break down.

Their home scalps include Saracens, Exeter, Bordeaux.

Should we win it will likely be ugly, it will be close, it will be nerve wracking and it will be a game befitting of knock out rugby. If someone is expecting us to be out of sight by half time and then rants (should we win) that we didn't win by more will need their heads checked. It does not happen in this stadium. Every Leinster player can have one of their best games (something that physically can't happen at altitude) and we will could only beat them by a score.

Having said that. Bennetton should be looking back wondering how they lost that. They had them on the ropes and a very harsh 14 point swing from a disallowed try was a killer. They made the Bulls look very ordinary at times.

But the Bulls can take a lot from how deep they dug in and how tough they made it. They wont fear anyone coming here.

great 23 this will be MASSIVE , selection is on the money , great bench strength & depth

Stormers promoting Bulls on their social medias sites. The Sa teams deffo paint a them versus everyone else picture.

If Jack Crowley were injured, and Hugo unavailable, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see that team be Irelands starting XV.

I think our best 2nd row Tadhg Beirne might have something to say about that.

Yes but if you can't see any merit or argument as to starting James Ryan and Joe McCarthy in the second row I don't know what to tell you.

All 3 are fantastic second rows.