Leinster v Treviso Thursday RDS 7.05 RTE 2

durkadurka

15: Isa Nacewa
14: Darren Hudson
13: Brendan Macken
12: Colm O'Shea
11: Fionn Carr
10: Ian Madigan
9: Isaac Boss

1: Heinke van der Merwe
2: Richardt Strauss
3: Nathan White
4: Damian Browne
5: Devin Toner
6: Kevin McLaughlin CAPTAIN
7: Shane Jennings
8: Leo Auva'a

REPLACEMENTS:

16: Tom Sexton
17: Jack McGrath
18: Jamie Hagan
19: Mark Flanagan
20: Jordi Murphy
21: John Cooney
22: Noel Reid
23: Andrew Boyle

I reckon we'll beat em up front.
Presume o malley not released and Luke and Dom not quite ready yet

chris85

Good mix in youth and experience in the team. Should be good to watch.

Tox56

Looks like Madigan won't get a great deal of help outside, he'll have to create things himself. Should be interesting.

durkadurka

Tox56 wrote: »

Looks like Madigan won't get a great deal of help outside, he'll have to create things himself. Should be interesting.

He might need to kick for position a bit more than he'd like. Should be a good test of his game management if Leinster decide to go for something of a ten man approach.

Although knowing joe he'll have him spinning it wide.

Nice that nacewa's there as a 'sweeper' to mop stuff up.

CatFromHue

The Treviso team is:

Treviso: 15 Ludovico Nitoglia, 14 Benjamin De Jager, 13 Ezio Galon, 12 Andrea Pratichetti, 11 Brendan Williams, 10 Alberto Di Bernardo, 9 Alberto Chillon, 8 Marco Filippucci, 7 Benjamin Vermaak, 6 Gonzalo Padrò, 5 Valerio Bernabò (c), 4 Francesco Minto, 3 Ignacio Fernandez Rouyet, 2 Enrico Ceccato, 1 Matteo Muccignat

The guys in bold started against Saracens in the last HEC pool game. We played them last year during the 6 Nations and beat them 30-5 with a fairly weakened team. Conway, Sheridan, EOM, Dave Kearney, McKinley, Ed O Donoghue, and Dom Ryan were all playing for us that day. Paddy Power have us at -20 too.

Our pack is pretty strong and we've got good halfbacks so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Treviso have the third worst tries against stat in the Pro12 so we could be looking at another big score here. Also there are only 4 guys from the team we beat 30-20 in Treviso playing tomorrow when we arguably had a weaker pack out!!

durkadurka

As a double check I checked the team that beat Biarritz in December and only the hooker played that day along with the already highlighted, so this is clearly a very under strength team.

From 1-9 we are practically HEC standard.

Joe is very good a picking teams good enough to win . I hope the forwards on the benc get a good run out if we can get on top .

Podge_irl

Kind of annoyed EOM and Kearney aren't released for this (presumably). That's a shockingly callow backline. Looking forward to this now.

Blackandblue42

Anyone know anything about Colm O'Shea?

[Jackass]

It may be callow, but it's a quality unit! The pack should absolutely batter Treviso up front, and give good quality possession to the backs.

Madigan has definitely been the breakthrough player of this season, absolutely superb young talent, and I can't wait to see him pulling the strings.

Don't forget, there are 10 Treviso players in the Italian match day squad, so they are probably one of the most hampered teams by the 6 nations, more so than most.

Hudson is a real dark horse, he could be a surprise package from the academy. Not much hype surrounding him, but he's been superb for the As and looked good in a couple of cameo's this season.

The midfield is the making or breaking of the team. If O'Shea and Macken can distribute the ball well enough, and if Macken can replicate his A form, we're in for a treat.

Probably not an entirely fair thing to say yet, but I haven't been massively impressed with Macken in the senior team so far, but mainly because I'm expecting so much, but in long term, I see him surpassing O'Malley and potentially being BODs full time replacement. No pressure, but he is a genius of sorts with the breaks he's capable of making in midfield, he just needs to bring it up to this level now, a low level PRO12 game, and hopefully that'll be the start of him making the step up to senior rugby.

Carr really needs a stormer in this one. He's been a massive disapointment since coming back. I had him pegged as the biggest signing we made over the summer, I expected him to bring back a Hickie element to the backline, where we can really miss blistering pace out wide, and I thought he'd be challanging for Heineken Cup starts, but he's not even making those squads and hasn't been able to replicate his Connacht form.

I'd say maybe he needs a season to settle and we'll see the best of him next season, but at 26 and on a one year contract, he needs to be delivering now.

Whilst I would have picked the same pack, there always the temptation to go for as much promising youth as possible, but if we're well ahead by half time, I'd like to see McGrath and Hagan given 40 minutes.

Would love to see Flanagan get an extended run too, and it would be nice to let Murphy and Cooney get some more senior game time.

As for Reid, he's a player I'm really not sold on. Maybe I'm being harsh, but he's a long way off Madigan or McKinney when he was around too.

[Jackass]

Blackandblue42 wrote: »

Anyone know anything about Colm O'Shea?

Not a lot, but have read other comments about him, a few comparrisons to D'Arcy style 12, strong carrier, good passer, maybe not the flashiest player, but you don't have to be flash to do a very good job. More workhorse than hollywood.

justsomebloke

Podge_irl wrote: »

Kind of annoyed EOM and Kearney aren't released for this (presumably). That's a shockingly callow backline. Looking forward to this now.

As there are 6 nations games this week I wouldn't have expected them to have been released. I'd say they will be released for next week game against scarlets due to there being no 6 nations games

molloyjh

[Quote=[Jackass];76991281]As for Reid, he's a player I'm really not sold on. Maybe I'm being harsh, but he's a long way off Madigan or McKinney when he was around too.[/Quote]

Agree with most of that post but the above. Haven't seen too much of Reid but I though the As QF the other week I thought he was very good.

bamboozle

i've seen Reid and O'Shea play a lot for Clontarf this season, O'Shea is similar in stature to D'arcy, well able to carry and defend at AIL level but he's probably 18 months conditioning from being effective at full Leinster level.
Great hands and good kicker also.

Reid is a mercurial 10, can be brilliant & very poor, is not a controlling 10, loves to ghost through a gap or chip over the opposition 10 to himself, great kicker from the ground & hand. His defence needs working on & if he ever got a bit of consistency to his game he'd be a serious talent.

Yeah I'd agree with the above. Watched Reid a lot when he played U20s for Leinster and the guy has got a serious rugby brain. So talented in unlocking a gap for others. Does blow hot and cold, but when he's on song the whole backline ticks. He's equally comfortable as a Paddy Wallace style 12 too.

These guys will learn buckets from exposure at this level though. So glad we are using the academy instead of a tier of middling pros when we've reduced numbers in international windows.

armchaircoach

No sign of Ruddock, is he injured or is there something to the rumours of a move?

Mr.Applepie

armchaircoach wrote: »

No sign of Ruddock, is he injured or is there something to the rumours of a move?

I'm fairly sure he just wasn't released from the Ireland squad along with EOM etc.

CIARAN_BOYLE

armchaircoach wrote: »

No sign of Ruddock, is he injured or is there something to the rumours of a move?

He is with the Ireland camp and not released for Leinster duty

durkadurka

I thought that in previous years, anyone who didn't make the 22 got released ?

justsomebloke

durkadurka wrote: »

I thought that in previous years, anyone who didn't make the 22 got released ?

generally only on off weeks in the 6 nations

durkadurka

Last year sexton played an off week in the 6n even though he had been in the 22 the previous week.

armchaircoach

and Wallace, Touhy and Henry have all been released to Ulster.

durkadurka

And Cullen played 2 games for Leinster during the 6N last year despite usually being in the Ireland 22.

conf101

Most years those not in the 22 get released back to the clubs during 6 nations weekends and during non 6 nations weekends everyone bar the starting 15 from the previous week gets released. I know it's not a hard and fast rule but they way it's been done in the past

durkadurka

conf101 wrote: »

Most years those not in the 22 get released back to the clubs during 6 nations weekends and during non 6 nations weekends everyone bar the starting 15 from the previous week gets released. I know it's not a hard and fast rule but they way it's been done in the past

I'd hope so because I dont want to see the likes of O Malley and D Kearney not playing a match for months, when we know they probably wont get material gametime for Ireland.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Most players get released on the Wednesday before a match, if Kidney was prepared to release EOM DKearney and Ruddock yesterday Schmidt would not have been prepared to pick them since they weren't training with the team

Neil3030

Really looking forward to this game tonight. With all the negativity surrounding the international performance at the weekend, it's easy to forget how lucky Leinster fans are with the current managerial set-up, developing such talent, to play such positive rugby.

durkadurka

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Most players get released on the Wednesday before a match, if Kidney was prepared to release EOM DKearney and Ruddock yesterday Schmidt would not have been prepared to pick them since they weren't training with the team

so the early date for this game was the problem then?

CIARAN_BOYLE

durkadurka wrote: »

so the early date for this game was the problem then?

yeah I think so, Wallace, Tuohy, and Henry were released yesterday to Ulster, if Declan Kidney had released EOM DKearney and Ruddock then Joe wouldn't have picked them.

On a saturday game Kidney would have been less likely to hang onto players

crisco10

anybody got a stream for those of us abroad on business?

Tox56

What is it with all these new backs and wearing their socks down? Some craze I'm missing out on?

Burgo

Lovely kick from Isa!

ambid

Leinster 3 - 0 Treviso

ambid

Tox56 wrote: »

What is it with all these new backs and wearing their socks down? Some craze I'm missing out on?

And Madigan's blue boots and O'Shea's white boots...

Give it a few years and they'll have diamond earrings like the soccer players

.ak

Did ruddock replace Jordi on the bench?

JustinDee

Wait til you see the height of the near-side touch official, Mark Patton. When he refs games, he looks down on the lineout jumpers as he walks through enforcing the metre gap
before the throw.

Burgo

Try saving tackle from de jager.

Burgo

3-3 dg from bernardo.

irishbucsfan

Mad-AGAIN

How does he get so many?

mar-z

Madigan really is lethal inside the 22

Tox56

Silky smooth player.

crisco10

Id say 80% of Madigans tries look exactly like that.

Burgo

Madigan In the corner! 8 - 3.
Isa hit the conversion pretty badly.

ongarite

Is he now Leinsters top try scorer this season?

irishbucsfan

Im watching on an Italian screen because I am a subject of her majesty.

I love the Italian commentary though. Describing Nacewa's kick as MalISSSSSSimo

lologram

Stream in English, anybody?

trackguy

I spotted Strauss at the Ireland camp on RTE News report today. It should be a good battle for the Ireland shirt with Best

irishbucsfan

Amazing fielding from Nacewa: "Mama Mia"

Grimebox

This on TV?

Tox56

Someone said earlier about Nacewa being in at Fullback to mop stuff up with all those young guys in the team, and that's exactly what's happened so far. Great player to have, especially considering he never has to leave for International duty.

Burgo

Grimebox wrote: »

This on TV?

Rte 2.

leakyboots

Tox56 wrote: »

Silky smooth player.

Who just acted like a speedbump for the Treviso 12 a minute ago, poor tackling (if it was him).

Nacewa is a class act, conversions apart