Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Thought we had few excellent individual performances. McCarthy, JGP and Osborne were all very good.

Systems wise our defence was top notch. Completely negated any backline moves Northampton tried to make in the first half.

But we were very lateral in attack. There was a lot of passing without committing any defenders. When Leinster actually went direct they made a lot of metres. Need to be far more direct and clinical for the final.

That was a bad 2nd half. Hopefully Ryan,Ringrose and Keenan are back for the final

Man, talk about a nervy finish. Still, job done and on to the Final.

Wonder what sort of team will be put out next week against the Ospreys.

semi-finals are for winning , no matter how you get over the line. Job done despite making it a lot more nervy than Saints performance warranted.

Another final secured!

Wont happen , but realistically need a change at 10 too, the brother not much better.

LoLol. Did they? You don't watch much rugby.

He's a dose. Saying Leinster were top of the URC versus top of the premier. Did it three times. Glasgow are... poor stuff but big Donal didn't correct the clown

Toulouse would shred Leinster if they play that poorly, defense was savage but Northampton don’t have anywhere near the creativity and counterattack that Toulouse do and their scrum is top drawer. Hoping that was Leinster’s poor performance out of their system but the cost of miserly defence seems to be pedestrian attack. RB had a game to forget and we missed Ringrose badly in midfield.

Northampton were completely shite until the last 20 minutes.

In some ways it's ideal that leinster had that scare to focus the minds for the final. Win win situation.

Only Leinster could be unhappy with a Champions Cup semi final win. Take the learnings and get set for Tottenham

Agree that Cullen made too many changes too early in the second half. Sheehan and VDF off at 50 minutes is crazy stuff

Leinster this season have tended to play down to their opposition. Look at the night and day performances against Leicester and LAR. When they feel there is a threat is when they up their game.

Leinster started off strong but when NH looked overawed they took their foot off. There is no concern that they take Toulouse lightly, if they get there.

You don't get style points for how you win a semi - you just have to get the job done, which they did.

Much rather this type of performance to sharpen their minds. Far happier the team will be taking pot shots from the media and opposing fans rather than blowing smoke up them for the next three weeks. Hopefully it also pushes them to get the frontliners more minutes in the run up to the final. If they'd beaten NH by 40 there could have easily been a sense of holding back the starters because it was working so well for this match.

People will never be happy when it comes to bench strategy.

Don't use the bench early, like Ireland, and people complain and say look at Rassie and the early use of his bomb squad.

Leinster use their bench early and people still complain.

Don't like picking on him but Ross Byrne is not good enough, has never been good enough, and will never be good enough at this level.

Unless the leinster forwards are monstering the opposition he struggles. Hope I'm wrong but I find it hard to see leinster beating Toulouse. If there was another 5 minutes there today they'd have lost that game.

Also, I'm not sure that resting the front line players so much is actually beneficial. They looked very tired for the last 15 minutes. Ask any player and they'll tell you there's nothing like a proper match to keep you sharp.