Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread XI (The Finals Countdown)

arsebiscuits1 wrote: »

I know Greg McGrath scrummaged well at loosehead for the A team recently so hopefully he can do similar here. Interesting he's straight in over Hanan but I'm sure there's reasoning for it.

If he can prove to be a capable scrummager at both sides at pro level surely a pro contract will be coming his way from somewhere

From leinster you'd hope.

bayern wrote: »

From leinster you'd hope.

Yeah but I imagine it would depend on Vakh recovering and/ or this alleged NIQ signing.

Is Molony injured? Would have thought he'd have been ahead of Dunne for this.

thomond2006 wrote: »

Looking at the lineups, it's got the makings of a trap game if Glasgow show up. The starting pack is strong, Dobie at 9 looked good last week at Ulster and Hastings returns at 10.

I think Glasgow can genuinely win this one and wouldn't be surprised if they do

I'm shocked at the bookies odds. Glasgow 9/1 to win. Leinster 18 point handicap

molloyjh wrote: »

Is Molony injured? Would have thought he'd have been ahead of Dunne for this.

presumably so.

Former Former Former wrote: »

Was training earlier in the week, could just be giving the young guy a run.

You’d think if he was available Fardy would have started in the back row.

notable that Osborne is on the bench ahead of O'Reilly.

sydthebeat wrote: »

yeah hes a machine...

just saying you dont see many 5' 11" number 8s... even in a sunday league

Sam Simmonds is probably the closest at 6'

bayern wrote: »

notable that Osborne is on the bench ahead of O'Reilly.

More versatile and more developed physically.

I'd have started Soroka at 6. Murphy at 8 and VDF on the bench. It should be a tough physical match.

Please don't pm me if you have a link. I would absolutely hate to watch this 😉

If you showed my that scoreline on Friday I'd have taken it with thanks as I genuinely felt Glasgow had a good chance at taking this one.

Having seen the game however I think the scoreline flattered us.

This was an extremely sloppy affair prompted by Leinster losing their 2 key play makers early on and Glasgow losing their key play maker too to one of the more braindead things you can do on a rugby pitch.

Kelleher was lucky the studs didn't get him in the eye. You saw the marks on his face how close it was. He had a click to react and managed to turn his face away but it was a sickening clash. To those saying it was a "rugby incident".... a rugby incident should never result in blindness in one eye, red carding these will prevent similar in the future. There cannot be an argument on this (in fairness no one here and only a smattering of people online thought it was anything other than red)

On paper, we lost the "stats battle" on everything except tries scored and turnovers conceded (11 Leinster, 16 Glasgow) but as always these don't tell the full picture. For example Leinster conceded 10 penalties to Glasgows 8. Glasgow clearly were not credited for all the penalties they conceded while we had advantage. This is an oversight IMO. Glasgow with the majority of Territory and Possession.

We were also credited with 220 tackles made which is a surprising total given the relatively one sided scoreline. The concerning aspect of these were the amount of soak tackles and missed (34 I have). Need to do better defensively than that.

To me it seems the plan for this game was to use Hawkshaw as a last resort and hoping Frawley and Harry could steer us. After we lost Harry we retained very little ball as neither Hawkshaw nor Jimmy got much shape going outside them - interestingly both stood in the 10 channel at various times. But once we lost Byrne the plan devolved to one out runners and territory for the most part.

Dooley was the pick of the litter of the front 5. Showcased again a willingness to carry and a great ability to step away from the first tackler for the meter. 18 carries and 13 tackles is a great shift for a loosehead who held his own in the many scrums also.

Penny was the pick of the backrow for me (with a significant hat tip to VDF with 24 tackles none missed) 22 carries and 22 tackles is serious energy from a man playing out of position. He must be among the fittest people in the squad. Consistently looking for work and at no point shirking the responsibilities. I did keep a close eye on him as I was curious to see how Leinster would amend their shape to accommodate Scott at 8. They didn't seem to at all which shows the faith in him. The exit strategy from receiving a KO tends to come from the 8 carrying hard out of the 22 and we saw examples of him doing this, taking on 2 men into contact to win the collision. The lineout was another one I kept an eye on. Leinster have their 8 jump at 2 a lot. Scott has never jumped before in a lineout. Low and behold... he jumped at 2 and won it (albeit uncontested). So congrats on your first lineout take Scott :pac: He took both his tries fantastically well.

FWIW I thought Josh Murphy had a poor display that was highlighted by his backrow fellows performance. Multiple penalties conceded and poor handling on display. He will need to do better.

This game will stand a lot to Jamie Osborne too who had a busy shift. Coming up against a resurgent Huw Jones who I think is an unbelievable 13. Osborne had an industrious 12 tackles but the major blot on the copybook is 2 poor misses that directly led to tries. Mitigation was he was in the right position and just showed poor execution, no doubt he will work on that and improve. Still hats off to a 19 year old for doing as well as he did for 80 minutes in a pretty attritional game.

I'm still not really seeing what Hawkshaw offers at 10. His pace, acceleration and step are all excellent. But his overall kicking game really seems to be lacking (he was poor out of hand) as does his ability to get things moving outside him. I'm sure there is room for an athlete of his caliber in Leinster - but is it at 10?

Penny has signed a new contract with Leinster afaik, I don't think he is going anywhere in the short term. Still just 21.

As we all know injuries happen a lot in the leinster backrow so projecting ahead much more than 1 season is folly.