Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Joe McCarthy is the lock I thought Baird would be.

I'd disagree on the Baird part. He made one superb run but he had some notable errors on re-watch and I'm not sure he'll be delighted with his showing. Getting stripped by them inside their 22 very easily and then held up on his own 5m line were big moments that could have been very costly. I assume he was running the line out in the last 30 minutes also when we started to come under real pressure there and became very sloppy.

Fully agree on the kicking. Not including clearing kicks, we put up contestable kicks 9 times between the 51st minute (when we made the first raft of subs and appeared to change approach) and 76th minute. All of these kicks were from roughly our own 10m line or further up the field (a couple in their half) so it was good, clean attacking ball in decent positions.

Another strong performance from Doris. Noticed we used McCarthy quite a lot as the tight carrier, whilst Doris was tasked with doing the clearing out.

Frawley is a surprise.

Some time ago when I was a lurker of the forum I remember somebody put together a list of when contracts were up, contract length etc of each player. I’ve had a search but can’t seem to find the post. I don’t suppose anybody has it handy or has a similar list or contract lengths/expiries?

Suprised by that to be honest..

Obviously everyone's situation is different but I honestly thought at 27 going 28 Deegan would be better off moving to another province in order to get some decent game time.

I see where you are coming from but it seems like a fairly sizeable reach that they would go with that line of thinking especially with Jordie Barrett arriving at Christmas. The only way it truly makes sense to me is if Leinster really want to move Ryan Baird back and forth between Lock and Blindside flanker depending on how they are allowed use RG Snyman next year. They probably view Baird as a Molony replacement in certain instances even though he is starting at blindside flanker. Either that or Leo must have made a fairly concrete promise to give Deegan some important Champions cup and big game minutes next season if he maintains his level of form.

can we start the countdown to next seasons episode of everyone saying where Deegan should go for the good of his career?

Ulster would be an unbelievably hard sell at the moment. They are a mess.

I'm delighted that Deegan is staying. Honestly, Ulster don’t need him. Going up to Belfast might get Deegan better opportunities but, there's a strong group of back rows at Ulster. I thought France might have been an option.

I've a feeling Sam Prendergast is going to get a fairly hefty push next season to stake his claim long term for the 10 jersey. I can't imagine Leo or Nienaber are thrilled with the consistency at the position. They have given Harry and Ross a lot of chances and they can't seem to grab the jersey and make it their own. They love how versatile Frawley is so they probably aren't going to hand the jersey to him because how well he can play at centre and full back.

Prendergast has a lot of Sexton in his game but is more expressive in how he moves the ball around the pitch. He has all the tools to be an Ireland international in the next 18 months.

I don’t see why a pro would want to go north to be honest. They are crap with little signs of becoming less crap. Ridiculously hard sell to a player of quality.