Leinster Vs Munster Pro 14 final build up thread

Exclamation Marc

Clearly Michael Bent is heading off. Great servant to Leinster.

Deusexmachina

Clegg wrote: »

Nonsense.

Murray is our greatest ever 9 and was the best scrum half in the world for a couple of years. He's clearly not the play he was due to injury, but don't underplay the level he reached and the trophies he's won due to performance silver recent seasons.

No even close. Stringer was miles ahead of him.

dregin

Delighted to see Benty lift the cup. Absolute hero.

Clegg

Playing Benny Benassi as the trophy celebration song.

We're taking the piss.

Love it.

breezy1985

Clegg wrote: »

Nonsense.

Murray is our greatest ever 9 and was the best scrum half in the world for a couple of years. He's clearly not the play he was due to injury, but don't underplay the level he reached and the trophies he's won due to performance silver recent seasons.

How does injury affect whether or not you stand around staring at the ball for ages. Too concerned with being the big man having to do everything himself even does all the defensive kicking with a world class outhalf behind him.

He suited Irelands style of play under Schmidt but I would take Stringer over him any day if we are talking about the best

mamaz

Clegg wrote: »

Playing Benny Benassi as the trophy celebration song.

We're taking the piss.

Love it.

They were playing 'Hate it or love it' by The Game at half time uncensored too!

theVersatile

Deusexmachina wrote: »

No even close. Stringer was miles ahead of him.

Was Stringer ever a Lion? Was he ever widely considered to be the best 9 in the world?

Squidgy Black

wittycynic wrote: »

You can put any indivudal result down to a host of factors including coaching an indivudal performances. When you take a longer view and see that Munster have won just 2 of the last 15 fixtures between these team, and Leinster have now won 4 Pro 14s on the trot, it needs to be accepted that there is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed if contests between Leinster and other provinces are to be considered competitive or the game in this country is to be kept healthy.

We've an unbelievably healthy level of competition in the country, Ulster were second in their group almost undefeated, Munster topped their group, and Connacht (despite their recent couple of results) were pretty dominant in the competition too.

What you mean to say is that you want to bring Leinster down a level, which would be absolutely daft in the eyes of the IRFU to let the revenue Leinster generate in terms of competition money and having national team players winning domestic and european competitions.

Instead it should be looking at a way to boost the other provinces even further as opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

wittycynic

its_phil wrote: »

No bother and us in Connacht look forward to some of Munster resources being redistributed out west too.

Cheers pal.

Fwiw, I would agree 100% with this. The game would be better served by it.

Deusexmachina

theVersatile wrote: »

Was Stringer ever a Lion? Was he ever widely considered to be the best 9 in the world?

lots of great players were never chosen for the Lions. Up until relatively recently, it was pure politics.

Exclamation Marc

Ulster are well on their way to being the second best team in Ireland. Munster never looked close today and were flattered by the score at both half time and full time.

thomond2006

Deusexmachina wrote: »

No even close. Stringer was miles ahead of him.

Murray at his best vs Stringer at his best is not a contest. Murray, every time.

Deusexmachina

Deusexmachina wrote: »

lots of great players were never chosen for the Lions. Up until relatively recently, it was pure politics.

Murrays prime.was better than stringers. There was aaron smith vs murray conversations at one point

Clegg

Stringer had a better pass than Murray. Probably a better pass than any 9 in the world when he was playing.

But Murray had an all round game that was second to none. There's a reason why Stringer took Biarritz by surprise in the Heineken Cup final. He rarely made breaks and he rarely box kicked.

breezy1985

sebdavis wrote: »

Ulster and Connacht have won more games than Munster against Leinster in the same period.

Silly child's way of looking at sport. Beating teams in league games and beating them in finals ain't the same

That was enjoyable. There's a gulf between the teams, said before the game that other than Beirne Munster weren't up to much in the tight 5, and then as the game developed CJ just had no impact and POM is just POM. Leinster won up front comfortably, and squandered 3 or 4 try scoring chances.

Strumms

wittycynic wrote: »

You can put any indivudal result down to a host of factors including coaching an indivudal performances. When you take a longer view and see that Munster have won just 2 of the last 15 fixtures between these team, and Leinster have now won 4 Pro 14s on the trot, it needs to be accepted that there is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed if contests between Leinster and other provinces are to be considered competitive or the game in this country is to be kept healthy.

The systematic success they achieved is because of talent, organization and hard work, on and off the pitch.. it’s a competitive sport, quite simply the onus is on the others to bridge the gap, to try to tug Leinster down a level, no.

irishbucsfan

Munster have been given loads of resources. They’re not as good as they should be given the resources they’ve already been given. Maybe if they were, there’d be a case for redistribution, but that should be massively more aimed at investing in Connacht rather than doing anything more for Munster.

almostover

theVersatile wrote: »

That's a very different game if Porter gets red carded at the start of the game. I don't even mean that in the 15 v 14 sense, but just that it would've laid down a marker and stopped a lot of the nonsense at the breakdown - would've been a lot more open of a game if Adamson put the foot down early. Instead, it was a wild west shoot out with a Roulette Wheel deciding penalties given.

Swings and roundabouts. Farrell had a high shot not long after. Both should have been reviewed.

Burkie1203

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Ulster are well on their way to being the second best team in Ireland. Munster never looked close today and were flattered by the score at both half time and full time.

McFarland is a far better coach then JVG. He has greatly improved quite a few Ulster players especially in the tight 5

Clegg

Leinster did a proper number on Beirne today. He was possibly the best player in the Six Nations, but was essentially marked out of the game today. We hammered every ruck he tried to get involved in and made sure to gang tackle him when he carried.

It also helped that we monopolised possession, so he couldn't influence the game with his carrying or offloading.

breezy1985

theVersatile wrote: »

Was Stringer ever a Lion? Was he ever widely considered to be the best 9 in the world?

Was Murray ever a European Cup winner. Stupid way of looking at things everything you list depends on who else existed in rugby at the time he played

Munster: Mike Haley; Andrew Conway, Chris Farrell, Damian de Allende, Keith Earls; Joey Carbery, Conor Murray; James Cronin, Niall Scannell, John Ryan; Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne; Gavin Coombes, Peter O’Mahony (captain), CJ Stander.

And on the topic of distribution, bolded/underlined are players who have been 'redistributed' to Munster from various places, it's over half the team. So this is happening at scale already.

theVersatile

almostover wrote: »

Swings and roundabouts. Farrell had a high shot not long after. Both should have been reviewed.

Unless I'm thinking of the wrong incident, I thought it was below the shoulder line - but yeah any sort of TMO intervention in any incident (neck roll city for both sides) or any form of warning or penalisation would've lead to a much cleaner game later on

Exclamation Marc

Burkie1203 wrote: »

McFarland is a far better coach then JVG. He has greatly improved quite a few Ulster players especially in the tight 5

Agreed. They're coming on and going from strength to strength. Would have liked to see them and Leinster in the final as I think it would have been a tighter and more challenging game.

mfceiling

Well done Leinster.

Gave up watching after about 55 minutes. There was just an air of inevitably of what was to come.

You may as well stick Leinster's name on that trophy for the next ten or twenty years....no other team close to them in the league.

Larbre34

So the first 3 rounds of the Rainbow Cup are more interpros, beginning with Leinster v Munster.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Feel there were shades of the France Scotland game there. France just lost their composure, decision making and at times execution when tasked with not just winning, but putting a score up.

I think expectation didn't suit Munster today, Leinster are a very experienced championship team now but they looked far more relaxed and as such - composed and clinical.

I do think coaching is an issue, have said plenty of times that I don't think he's replicated some of the improvements demonstrated under Erasmus and I feel Munster have lost some of their rugby IQ since his departure. The lack of intensity today however is on the players and I dare ask is there a leadership issue?

The big plus from that is Coombes - he is going to be a star, biggest concern is how poor the Munster halves were collectively.

POM's post match interview was a sea of equivocation. Looked like he had a lot more he wanted to say.

breezy1985

breezy1985 wrote: »

Was Murray ever a European Cup winner. Stupid way of looking at things everything you list depends on who else existed in rugby at the time he played

Why would you reference a team achievement to discredit an individual achievement

Exclamation Marc

mfceiling wrote: »

Well done Leinster.

Gave up watching after about 55 minutes. There was just an air of inevitably of what was to come.

You may as well stick Leinster's name on that trophy for the next ten or twenty years....no other team close to them in the league.

What a weird time to stop watching a game when there's a score in it.