Leinster v Newport Gwent Dragons RDS RTE2 ko 7.05pm

durkadurka

All right then I'll start the thread.

I'll be there freezing my arse off in the grandstand as usual.

I think we have enough to win this. 15,000 tickets sold for it too - very good considering it's a low end game with all the big guns missing.

Also our first sight of Newland on his stint in the 'UK'. Grrrrrr.

Pack looks solid. Great opportunity for Cullen to get a good workout and show kidney what he's missing.




From Leinsterrugby.ie


LEINSTER:
15: Isa Nacewa
14: Shane Horgan
13: Eoin O'Malley
12: Fergus McFadden
11: David Kearney
10: Shaun Berne
9: Isaac Boss

1: Heinke van der Merwe
2: Richardt Strauss
3: Clint Newland
4: Leo Cullen CAPTAIN
5: Trevor Hogan
6: Rhys Ruddock
7: Shane Jennings
8: Stephen Keogh
REPLACEMENTS:
16: Jason Harris-Wright
17: Jack McGrath
18: Mike Ross
19: Ed O'Donoghue
20: Dominic Ryan
21: Paul O’Donohoe
22: Ian Madigan
23: Andrew Conway
DRAGONS: Pat Leach, Will Harries, Tom Cheeseman, Ashley Smith, Adam Hughes; Jason Tovey, Wayne Evans; Phil Price, Tom Willis CAPTAIN, Nigel Hall, Scott Morgan, Robert Sidoli, Adam Jones, Gavin Thomas, Lewis Evans
REPLACEMENTS: Lloyd Burns, Dan Way, Hugh Gustafson, Luke Charteris, Hugo Ellis, Rhodri Gomer Davies, James Leadbeater, Matthew Jones
REFEREE: Stefano Penne (FIR), ASSISTANT REFEREES: David Wilkinson, Leo Colgan (both IRFU), 4th OFFICIAL: Ken Henley-Willis (Leinster Rugby Referees), 5th OFFICIAL: David Bolger (Leinster Rugby Referees), TMO: Dermot Moloney (IRFU)

trackguy

Still a very good team - look forward to seeing more of O'Malley & McFadden. Hope Conway gets some game time too

stejkenny

Pack does look good apart from Hogan; hes crap; great mix of youth and experience; Really looking forward to see how Newland scrums; From what i have seen he looks a bit crap scrum wise but i could be totally wrong:D

padser

durkadurka wrote: »

15,000 tickets sold for it too - very good considering it's a low end game with all the big guns missing.

12,000+ of those are season tickets IIRC

Interesting that Conway seems to have slipped WAYYYY down the pecking order.

Also good to see Ruddock getting a game ahead of Ryan. It must be VERY frustrating for him to see Ryan getting ahead of him, and it's partly due to him getting his senior cap which left him coming back late to pre season etc etc.

On a side note though awesome for Leinster, our backrow in about 1 to 2 years will have

Heaslip
SOB
Jennings
McLoughlin
Ryan
Ruddock

Choose 3 from 6 (or I guess 2 from 5 as no one is really going to displace Heaslip).

What an incredible collection of loose forwards to have knocking about.....our backrow is starting to resemble our backline in terms of riches to choose from......

padser

padser wrote: »

1
Interesting that Conway seems to have slipped WAYYYY down the pecking order.

Either that or Schmit is genuinely trying to find reasonble game time for all of the panel. Dragons at home is a good opportunity to do that.

thomond2006

Dragons are missing Faletau and Brew (both playing for Wales against Fiji) who are big players for them.

I'm thinking Leinster BP here.

conormccarthy92

entire front row consisting of SH players ....

conormccarthy92

conormccarthy92 wrote: »

entire front row consisting of SH players ....

Entire replacement frontrow Irish qualified

ongarite

Nice try for Leinster and great line and speed from Horgan who released Berne for the try.

Leinster 7 - 0

thomond2006

17-3 now

its_phil

Cullen with a yellow...DK might be using that as an excuse not to pick him!!!:p

conormccarthy92

conormccarthy92 wrote: »

entire front row consisting of SH players ....

Sorry to sound abrasive, but its a team representing Leinster on an International weekend. So the **** what if they're all SH players? GTFO if you're trying to cause a fuss. Fogarty forced to retire and our two starting props on International duty.

We played an A game earlier today which featured 14/15 Irish players? Did you notice that? In fact, our replacement hooker played the game!

**** stirring with stupid vague open ended statements like that is bang out of line.

______________


Now, back to the game, Nacewa doing the business, and I never thought I'd say it, its nice to see Berne back!

wixfjord

Good game so far.
Really impressed with Kearney, coming on to the ball at real pace, and safer looking than Conway.

Keogh playing really well again too, one of my fave players.

Berne is one of the best OH in Europe against a bad team, really good passer and playmaker.
If he was quick and could kick he'd be great!!

Newland has been good in open play, but very poor in scrums.

jolley123

O'Donoghue's makin JHW look sh*te.

wixfjord

Lets ave a BP now lads.

thomond2006

Harries should be shot for that 'tackle' on Horgan. Like Lomu vs Stringer there.

wixfjord

Really really impressed with Kearney and O Malley.

wixfjord

YESSSSSSSSSS!
Really delira with this performance.
Same old Leinster, champagne rugby!!

John_Rambo

Great to see an Irish team play like this, very smooth. Passion, grit and guts.

phog

Leinster got a good result and the 2nd string players showed they're up for it when they are called on, they got their 4 tries for the BP but it should be noted that it really was a disinterested Dragons team that arrived in the RDS.

Jennings still a bit of a penalty machine despite the "man in the van" thinking he's got cute about his tackling.

wixfjord

phog wrote: »

Leinster got a good result and the 2nd string players showed they're up for it when they are called on, they got their 4 tries for the BP but it should be noted that it really was a disinterested Dragons team that arrived in the RDS.

Jennings still a bit of a penalty machine despite the "man in the van" thinking he's got cute about his tackling.

Ive really changed my opinion on Jenno this season, and the Eburgh and Treviso games are a big part of it. Does so much work, but like Healy, is just soooooo stupid re: penalties.

Not a disinterested Dragons team though, just an outplayed one.

Great performance, and warms the cockles of my rugby heart before the Irish game.

durkadurka

Just back from match, great stuff from the fringe players, shaggy deserved man of match , two great tries and laid on another brilliantly. Official attendance ten thousand but I estimated eight thousand. Dragons fairly phoned it in, Leinster could have had seven tries. Great stuff all round but cullen a bit silly to get binned.

smurphy29

Also just back, a very pleasing performance. All the backline played pretty smartly - the two centres were impressive, Shaggy played really well, and David Kearney probably had his best game for Leinster.

In the forwards Keogh was his usual busy self, he's a very valuable player for us in these sorts of games - he's our Mick O'Driscoll if you like - and Mike Ross really got our scrum right on top when he came on.

Madigan's pass looked very flat and very fast when he came in to fly half. A decent cameo. One concern is hooker, though - Strauss is fantastic, but Harris-Wright isn't ready to step in, and heaven forbid anything were to happen to Strauss we'd be in serious trouble.

durkadurka

Apparently jhw played a match already today. Yep plenty of performances from d Kearney, o malley , mc fadden. Bit too much kicking , I felt McFadden kicked a few grubbers when he didn't have to take the risk. The likes of ISA shaggy and Cullen really beef up the team when the internationals are gone. Dragons were shyte, they had a massive overlap once and made a bollocks of it

PhatPiggins

What did people think of Clint Newland ? I already had preconceived notions of him from watching him play for the Maori in the summer and in the NPC.

I don't think he's up to much in the scrums to be honest.

durkadurka

He's bloody big and ok in loose but the scrum not too clever with him in it

CatFromHue

PhatPiggins wrote: »

What did people think of Clint Newland ? I already had preconceived notions of him from watching him play for the Maori in the summer and in the NPC.

I don't think he's up to much in the scrums to be honest.

he is a bit of a monster, kinda reminds me of jaws from james bond! i was walking in as they were at the edge of the pitch so got see him up close.

that rhys ruddock isnt a shirking violet either!

i dunno about the scrum yet, we did have leo sin binned when we were having the scrum problems in the middle of the pitch.

i did think alot of the problems were in van der merve side too.

PhatPiggins

Problem I see with Newland is that he's so bloody strong he just stands up in the scrum and leaves the hooker and loose head to fend for themselves. He breaks his bind with the hooker nearly every scrum and while he's side of the scrum looks ok the it effectively leaves Strauss and VDM pushing against the Dragons FR on their own which is only going to end one way.

If you could teach the fecker to scrummage he'd be All Black material

Bogsnorkler

Great stuff! Very impressed. This and Munster during in the week are so spiriting in the current bleak rugby climate!

irishbucsfan

I'm not sure how long Newland will be here, but he reminds me of Stan when he first arrived. With the right coaching he could become extremely valuable.

bamboozle

plesently suprised by quality of o'malley, mcfadden and kearney stood up also. thought ruddock carried a lot of ball and was everywhere. Ross made such an impact on scrum when he came on it was unreal...still he's no bull!

dare i say it but the best performance of the night for me was the referee, thought he got everything spot on, allowed scrums to develop. French ref's always worry me but this guy was excellant.

durkadurka

I thought he was italian

danthefan

bamboozle wrote: »

plesently suprised by quality of o'malley, mcfadden and kearney stood up also. thought ruddock carried a lot of ball and was everywhere. Ross made such an impact on scrum when he came on it was unreal...still he's no bull!

dare i say it but the best performance of the night for me was the referee, thought he got everything spot on, allowed scrums to develop. French ref's always worry me but this guy was excellant.

He missed Kearney tackling a Dragons player in the air from a cross field kick which they could have scored off, we got away with that big time. Otherwise he was excellent imo.

Edit - and yes he was Italian.

danthefan

danthefan wrote: »

He missed Kearney tackling a Dragons player in the air from a cross field kick which they could have scored off, we got away with that big time. Otherwise he was excellent imo.

Edit - and yes he was Italian.

That was more up to the touch judge to ping him for that. His fault since it happened about a foot away from him.

bamboozle

durkadurka wrote: »

I thought he was italian

well that's reassuring at least i can continue my fear of french ref's!

still, good to see others agree he did a good job, some of the refereeing in the magner's has been woeful. Poite's performance in Leinster v London Irish in HC last season was probably the worst ref performance i've ever seen.

funky penguin

Overall thought he did well, but there was also that moment in the second half when......emmmmm....was it Jennings (?) was being held back off the ball right on the Dragons' try line. Instant yellow imo.

I liked how his advantages were quite short.

Trojan

Official figure was ~10,300. But it was a super atmosphere at the match despite the lower turnout, and a couple of Leinster players held back at the end to applause the support, nice to see.

copacetic

funky penguin wrote: »

Overall thought he did well, but there was also that moment in the second half when......emmmmm....was it Jennings (?) was being held back off the ball right on the Dragons' try line. Instant yellow imo.

I liked how his advantages were quite short.

it was Boss I think, Ref saw it too, it was the 3rd warning to them that one more offence would lead to a yellow in about 4 mins for blatant offences on their line. Should have been at least a couple of yellows at that stage, was very soft on them imo. Otherwise he wasn't too bad.

Conas

To be honest I thought the Dragons were woeful. O Malley was good, I personally thought he should have got MOTM. Leinster beat what was in front of them, which wasn't anything great.

crisco10

this isnt up on rte player yet, does that mean it will never be up? I see yesterdays international is up already....

stejkenny

crisco10 wrote: »

this isnt up on rte player yet, does that mean it will never be up? I see yesterdays international is up already....

rte player dont put up the ml games;

PJ Maybe

RTE wait till after the weekend to put them up. I think that Setanta have delayed rights to show the matches. It's up there now : http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1085294