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

but the majority of the Irish players going on last few ended up with injury issues for years after.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration tbh. They'll all be clawing their eyes out to go, and it's a nice target for Kelleher to focus on during rehab.

Yeah fair enough, just had a look at his stats and this coming weekend will be his 30th matchday involvement of the season between Leinster and Ireland. Clearly you don't play that many games if you're injured much.

SOB, Sexton, Henshaw, Conan, Furlong off top of head have all come back with recurring injuries which has hampered them for seasons afterwards.

While you seen players like Ryan/Doris who missed the last tour really kick on after missing it.

I know it is a huge honour, but after trying to watch the muck in the last tour I kind of see it as a bit of a pointless exercise. Rassie in the press, the time before that in NZ was the media etc and Gatland just flying in random players from Wales.

Only hope is with Farrell running the show it might be a little bit more exciting and maybe a little less intensive on players as Aus

Mate done his knee in when skiing. The damage was done right at top of mountain. It was sore, we stopped for a few mins. He said he was ok and went down the rest of mountain. It was only at the very bottom the leg just went from under him.

No medical expert or anything and my only personal experience of it but seems you can get different levels etc

Not entirely. He stepped back inside off his injured left leg. Sure it wasn't a Kolbe-esque (or indeed a Dan Sheehan-esque) step. Probably more a shuffle back inside but he still showing pretty dynamic movement.

Change of direction is the last thing you need to tick off in an ACL recovery. The fact he could still do it would suggest at the time is injury wasn't as serious as first though.

…. Of course the other side of the coin is maybe his injury wasn't as bad and a movement like that made it worse! But in fairness, a ligament tear is a ligament tear

Seen that and knew he was in trouble then.

It's really hard to know with him tbh. He had what was probably simultaneously his best season for Leinster (since his breakthrough anyway) and yet probably his most frustrating in other ways.

The best parts: he stayed healthy largely for the full season (something he'd never managed before), he had a couple of really good performances in some big wins for Leinster, starting the game against La Rochelle and playing very well before leaving with concussion and starting in a BP win over in Welford Rd against Leicester. He also started at 10 and played well when Leinster blew the Bulls away in the RDS. That resulted in him getting back in the Ireland squad and coming off the bench twice during the 6N.

The frustrating parts: The coaching team didn't back him to kick on post the 6N break - as soon as his brother got healthy again, Ross got the start for the Round of 16 game against Leicester, and kept it through the end of the season for the big games. He had a poor tour to SA and seemed to really lose the faith of the coaches thereafter, resulting in him seemingly falling behind Sam Prendergast by season's end and not even making the trip to SA for the semi. He obviously missed out on selection for Ireland this summer.

I still rate him highly as a player, and think he's talented, but just lacking that bit of consistency. He comes across as a very laid back, languid kind of guy, and then plays like that too - just always feels like a guy with a loose intercept or that in him.

In a weird way - more than Sam P - he's a guy who moving to Connacht would suit better - because I'm still not sure if despite his talent he has the mentality or maturity to actually lead a team, but he could go there and face some adversity and find out.

Sam expressed interest last year to move to Connacht but that was stopped by Leinster. I believe Sam now is seen as the no2 for Ireland going forward and declined advances from Connacht this year. Ireland management have lost confidence in Harry and I reckon he would be far better off personally being a no 1 at a team rather than being on a rota for game time.

Im not sure this is true or just noise from the media. When Nienaber was asked this is what he said "No. I think there are discussions, obviously, but like I said, my job is purely on the field. Leo (Cullen) and other guys are working on that."

That was taken by the media as confirmation.
The bit I heard was IRFU asked, Leinster said we want a NIQ number 10 so, IRFU rejected. End of conversation

Connacht got offered the NIQ 10 and signed one.

Has anyone in Leinster management said they have lost confidence in Harry?
If they did Im sure he would just move so if the choice was given him

No, Prendergast did make that trip. Didn't make the match squad in the end, but was down there for the week and presumably next man in in case of late injury etc.

I would have preferred if Harry did come to Connacht rather than the 10 that was signed from NZ, just to see his performances if given the no1 spot. Leinster has so much talent coming through each year, if a player doesn't perform they become a useful squad player quickly.

Harry threw the intercept.. no one else.

You're not wrong, but I also could see Harry being pretty discouraged after they dropped him immediately for Ross after he's been playing well. That was a huge mistake imo by Leo, and perhaps cost us going into the end of the season.

Yeah, that's the issue with Harry - the sense is he gets discouraged, drops the head and the mental errors follow.

If he was peeved at being forced to play the Lions to begin with, and then turned in that poor performance, then in an oddly circular sort of way that vindicates the coaching staff as to why he was dropped to begin with.

As I said above, the sense for years with him has been his biggest deficiencies are mentality and maturity.