Leinster v Stade Toulousain ultimate grudge match

redmca2

One shouldn't get carried a way by the margin of victory. Toulouse were clearly affected by the 100 minutes of hard graft against Munster last week not to mention the amount of air travel etc. Nevertheless I still believe Leinster at the best, like yesterday, would beat Toulouse on their best day. An unsung hero of the match is Ala'alatoa who put in a far longer shift that anticipated and acquitted himself very well.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119065680#Comment_119065680

When whoever has the ball leaves the maul, when the ball carrier crosses the 15, or when the ball carrier crosses the 5m line parallel to the touch line. I'm not sure beyond that, could be moving forward a certain amount or else nobody would be allowed join a maul who wasnt in the lineout. Definitely none of those things had happened, it was a clear penalty.

Clegg

On rewatch of the game, the thing that most impressed me about Leinsters gameplan was their kicking strategy. We used three different kickers for different strategic plans and they all worked well. Sexton kicked slightly shorter on his contestables, usually between the opposition 10m and 22m lines. It allowed chasers to be in position to challenge and we made a few decent territorial gains from them.

I think we used Lowe as a kicking option more than ever before. He must have kicked close to a dozen times. He didn't find touch that often, but he kicked so long that Toulouse were forced to attack from deep and our defensive line managed to reset on halfway rather than in our 22. We backed our defence and generally didn't let Toulouse back in.

Ringrose made some lovely grubber kicks into the Toulouse 22. They were well weighted and accurate so didn't go into touch, which forced Toulouse under a lot of pressure close to their own line. Some if those kicks would have led to trys but for bad bounces.

We know these three players have these as strengths of their respective games. But we've never seen them all deployed so effectively in the same game.

Dubinusa

Our go forward carries were great. Conan, Sheehan and Ala'Alatoa in particular excelled at key moments to get over the gainline and set up quick ruckball.

To nullify Ntamack and Dupont is no small feat. I think there were a couple of times that our lads got a fingertip on Duponts clearance kicks.

But I think Sexton was on a different level and really took the attack by the scruff of the neck. He seems to see plays before they happen.

Kudos to the defense! A serious shift put in against a large side. The quality of the tackles was great. How many times were Toulouse stopped at the gainline and the defense was organized and ready before the ruck was complete?

I also noticed a couple of times that Porter was in over the ball and was driven off by side entries that were not called. Another ref and we could have had mote territory and possession .

Mad to think that Toulouse scored a try off a fluke piece of play and a maul. Otherwise, they were lost!

Waesfjord

Has anyone a link to full match or extended highlights?

Clegg

^

Link to the full match with French commentary.

https://youtu.be/Hsp00v_1Z2s

Teferi

Re: Lowe's kicking - we were specifically looking for him to clear the ball with his howitzer. A few times JGP had kicker options and specifically fed the ball to Lowe to kick. Fair enough really, what a boot.

There was one great bit of play from Lowe where he intercepted Toulouse right on our left touchline deep in the Leinster half, turned on a dime and kicked it all the way back down to the Toulouse goal line. He just adds value all over the pitch no matter what he's doing. Such a quality player. Also has scored EIGHT tries in the knockout stages alone.

stephen_n

I wonder why we don’t use Lowe for touch finders down the right hand side. When it’s harder for Sexton to make distance.

Sangre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119066222#Comment_119066222

Surely intentional most of time to not take lineout and keep ball in play time high to tire out Toulouse. Leinster would have backed themselves as fitter team even without that 100 min slugfest the week before.

Burkie1203

https://twitter.com/ek_rugby/status/1525551207514791937?t=bcfVD4TuAGSLrbGHstpOPg&s=19

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emiliaalinaa8

simple try to find on google