Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

I find it baffling that Frawley wasn't playing at 10 v Ulster. A 6 2 split and no recent minutes for your back up. Utter madness.

Leinster's attack this season has been mechanical. There rarely is any flow to the movements and it is easier for good teams to shut down the attack. The sense of urgency inside the oppositions 22 has been their undoing, especially in the final. I don't think it can be underestimated how important Garry Ringrose is to making the Leinster midfield tick. Osborne and Henshaw are very similar ball carriers and don't offer the same variation as Ringrose does in attack.

Ross wasn't the problem in the final. Neither was Frawley. Dupont played like the best player in the World. Leinster are going to be stronger in many ways next season but they are also going to be significantly weaker.

Snyman and Barrett are going to offer huge World Class options. But the loss of Ala'alatoa, the aging of Cian Healy and with Luke McGrath falling off a cliff in terms of his on field abilities. Michael Milne and Jack Boyle are not ready to step into the 17 Jersey. Tom Clarkson and Rory McGuire are not ready to step into the 18 jersey and Fintan Gunne and Foley aren't yet ready to take the back up scrum half position. they are all around 12 months away. Boyle is 12 months away from legitimately pushing Porter for the jersey. I'm not sure Clarkson or McGuire will get close to Furlong level and Gunne is about 12-18 months away from being ready.

it is a bit of a travesty that the IRFU has stepped in and stopped Leinster from going out and getting a NIQ TH. They have been to the last 3 finals and are competing against French teams who can bring in as much international talent as they want.

Jack Boyle will be 2nd choice LH by about the midway point of next season and will be a factor in Europe but Gunne, Foley, Clarkson and McGuire are a ways away.

I'd love to bring Kieran Marmion in for the year to step in as back up scrum half and then Leinster need to make another go at getting a quality back up Tighthead. We can't expect to play Furlong 75 plus minutes if Leo or Jacque don't trust the replacement like they do with Luke McGrath.

In 12 to 18 months time Leinster will be in a seriously strong position of strength but it would be extremely poor team management by Leinster and neglectful of the IRFU to leave Leinster short at positions of serious need in the short term.

I think every province can make the case of help in the front row is the thing, certainly feel with Leinster and Munster in particular, a strong back up at Leinster and starter for Munster, will seriously hurt in the big boy games of rugby

Think you're giving Ross an easy pass, Ringrose or not, no movement, just planting his feet and passing isn't good enough at this level. Henshaw played really well but cause Byrne was so deep he had two defenders on him and only 5 yards away. We were a few metres away from winning with a drop goal due to the injection of pace that Frawley brought. Im not trying to be wise after the fact, we would have all started Ross in the game but it didn't click, like it didn't click v Northampton and in particular on Byrne when we were going for the corner, he wasn't getting us to the 5m line - we were 8/9m out

I would be a little worried about the strike moves we had, nothing more than screen passes too.

How people can say that RB's inability to run is not an issue baffles me. It puts huge pressure on those outside him, as he can't 'fix' any defenders.

Fortunately we don't need Clarkson to hit Furlongs level, we need him to hit Alla'altoa's Scrummaging level. I'm not sure he's too far away from that now.

What I think will suffer will be further down the line, we will need to take 2 academy tightheads this year and hopefully another one next year. If Clarkson can break out and be a competent scrummager there's a risk he gets into Ireland squads and we are left with a couple of academy tightheads to fill a gap. That's a problem at the moment considering we only have McGuire in the academy at the moment.

Hard to win with 3s. Leinster also got slated for taking 3s against LR 2 years ago.

I think the issue here is that in both those games, Leinster seem to have decided (most likely the coaches) what they were going to do with penalties in the opposition half before the game. It seems to have been prescribed and with little flexibility. Instead of assessing the situation (position of kick, flow of the game, results of previous decisions, etc.), it seemed predetermined rather than trusting onfield decisions. "Trust the system" makes it almost impossible for someone to point out when it isn't working.

Som seem to think kicking to the corner is the SA approach or the Nienaber influence but I don't think that is accurate.

I still think he has a fair amount in his tank but he can't be playing a full 80 minutes next season. Leinster need to be able to trust their bench and right now, at scrum half they don't.

I have given Ross a bit of a pass but he wasn't the reason we lost, I think Ross is going to be a placeholder fly half until Sam Prendergast is ready. Leinster are close to being absolutely fine across the board but they are a year away. Boyle is going to be a beast, Gunne really looks like a top prospect and Sam Prendergast is a potentially generational fly half. Frawley is the ideal utility back off the bench.

If Leinster can bring in a scrum half for a year and a NIQ TH for two, Leinster will be firing on all fronts.

Clarkson does need to get to Ala'alatoa levels but I just don't have much faith in his scrummaging, the same with Milne on the far side. Both very handy with ball in hand but just don't trust them fully in the scrum.

Leinster would be so silly not to replace Ala'alatoa.

I think so, but it was ballsy, to say the least. Fair play to him.