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

It cemented to me that he is a bench player, he barely has the gas for 50 minutes. Ryan is a 80 minute player, it could allow McCarthy to put in a huge shift for 50-55 minutes then come off for Snyman.

I would absolutely rather have Moloney than him.

We'll have four months to figure out where exactly Barrett fits so I'm not too concerned. The biggest question marks for me now are where Frawley and Osborne play.

It's clear that our coaches don't see the former as a starting 10, but the struggles of the Byrne's and the youth of Prendergast means we need to try something different for next season. That play inside the 22 to loop around the Bok defence then put in a beautiful grubber for a huge territorial gain is not something many 10's would have contemplated.

Osborne has played primarily as a centre, mostly due to injuries at 12, but excelled against the World Champions playing at full back. He has leapfrogged JOB who started there for a lot of Leinster's knock out games. I'm not suggesting he start ahead of Keenan or Ringrose/Henshaw, but maybe a spot on the wing is open at least for now? Don't think Larmour or JOB have ever quite nailed that position down in the same way Lowe and Keenan have theirs.

Moloney has shown his value many times, being key in our games when we hammered Toulouse. In addition, he had the value of availability, playing in load of games during the season.

I didn't say he doesn't have value. I did say there won't be anyone wishing Moloney was coming off the bench instead of RG.

Does Farrell?
Or does he see him as the perfect 23

RG played a bit in the world cup and SA did alright...

Someone spaffed-off an opinion that Moloney is better than RG (they said they'd prefer Moloney to RG) and that just doesn't work in reality.

I said nobody will see RG come off the bench and wish Moloney was coming on instead. I think that's absolutely true. No shade at Moloney, he's decent. But let's be serious.

"played a bit" is the best description

RG as I siad is an impact sub, 30 mins max. Rolling him off any earlier and it just doesn't work. As I said if it was after 5 mins then yes a strong case for Moloney could be made

Moloney was an excellent servant for Leinster and his performance v TOulouse was incredible, have you seen RG give a performance like that?

Maybe RG is better, maybe he is as good as people say he is. But still waiting for him to show it. Personally based on Ryan/Big Joe performance he will be an impact sub for Leinster, nothing more

Maybe Frawley might need to move so

Lads, this is pure 3AM talk.

Great contribution

So no example?

I didn't think so

RG came over to Ireland and his reputation has grown now to been one of the best second rows in the World? based on what I have yet to see.

He came to Munster from Japan, hardly the hardest league in the World.

As I said before I hope he is a success but from what I can see his reputation isn't coming from big performances in big games. The odd cameo as a sub doesn't make him one of the best players in the World

Or we move on from the Byrnes and split the majority of game time between Prendergast and Frawley. If both of them go belly up we know what Ross can do and can bring him back in after the 6 nations.

There's a chance that Frawley doesn't really work out as a starting 10, but he's very clearly a great bench option. All going well Prendergast is going to work out as a starting 10. Two outhalfs isn't enough to get us through the season (before injuries) so there will be minutes available regardless, but I really think we need to be purposeful with where we put the majority of minutes going forward.

That post makes no sense. You say to move on from both Byrnes and then admit only 2 10's is not enough

Waiting for half the season to be over before making a decision on the 10 will probably have us out of Europe and in a difficult position in an ever increasing difficult league

Predergast even going well, I doubt he will be able to take over the starting 10 role this season, unless he has a huge preseason and builds himself up. Especially in those big European games.

Predergast got significant minutes last season, I expect that to increase. H Byrne played the majority of games last year at 10 and I don't really expect that to change. Maybe we will see a drop off in minutes for Ross as we move on