discuss here.
Yeah, I'd agree with that, Luck certainly plays a part in any sporting encounter. If the ball had obviously gone forward, he would probably have been given a yellow card given where they were on the pitch.
Of course, you can tie yourself up in knots playing counterfactuals all day long
Rugby is a game of inches. If Dupont's leg was a few centimetre's higher in that opening attempt at a try, then they would have been 5 points up after 2 minutes etc etc etc
At the end of the day, I thought Carley did a decent job of refereeing the game. Every game has moments that can be debated one way or another. Some say VDFs try should not have been awarded, I think it was a try, but the TMO couldn't see for 100% certain that it was grounded over the line… There were plenty of potential penalties committed by Leinster players that were let slide, just as Toulouse got away with a few.
Ultimately, Leinster came close, but were never in front at any stage over the 110 minutes of rugby played that day. There are things that could possibly have shifted the balance in their favour, if they hadn't left Ross out even when he was injured, if there was someone other than Luke McGrath on the bench who could have come on to bring fresh legs, if Leinster had taken 3 points earlier to close the gap and keep the pressure on Toulouse, if Leinster hadn't had so many handling errors, poor passes, fumbled balls, poor throws into the lineout etc…
Carley wasn't the defining man on that pitch on Saturday. He did a decent job and let the game develop for both teams. When Toulouse had opportunities to score, they either took them, or took a valiant effort from Leinster defenders to stop them. Leinster didn't take their opportunities for points, and didn't really create any attacking threat for most of that game.
I've no interest in engaging in this further, it's not going to change anything. We're both probably guilty of seeing what we want to see in these images.
Hard to disagree here. It's Tuesday, time to move on.
Yes. Which it did relative to his hand.
I can't see that happening, sorry
So when it comes to the decisions that negatively impacted Leinster its okay to slow them down, freeze frame them and then chastise the ref for making the wrong call but when it comes to decisions that favour Leinster people should focus on how those incidents happened in real time and its hard to the judge them so they shouldn't really be considered. There's guilty of seeing what you want and then there's complete bias.
The reality is the Willis tackle is the probably the only clear and obvious error I think the ref/TMO made. One could slow down nearly every ruck and maul in the game and point out an infringement that the ref missed.
You don't even have to slow down every tackle/ruck or mauls to see potential infringements refs haven't pulled. Refs will not and can mot pull everything. Game would be unplayable and unwatchable if they even tried do that
If this is intentional, it's absolutely genius. I think it might be.
Scrum at 35 mins. Porter is holding himself up on Aldegheri's jersey, which in turn is being held up by Mauvalla's right arm
Then Mauvalla lets go and guess what happens
No, that’s not what I’m saying. For each and every incident you basically need to see it both in the freeze frame and the real time speed to sense check it, but most especially moments like the ones I’ve highlighted. The notion that the rest of you are all objective and neutral observers and only the Leinster fans are guilty of bias is a pretty misguided one too, especially when you look at the multitude of posts (and those who liked them) in the match thread.
Literally the very same thing happens at the next scrum after Byrne kicks it out on the full. Must have been a strategy. Carley doesn't give anything even though it's right in front of him. Although Leinster have a shove and Aldegheri's back foot slips so not a clear cut penalty against Leinster.
Porter is clearly in my opinion the best irish player and one of the best of all time. He's also very often illegal in the scrum.
I mean it works because porters dragging directly down. No pom to pop his elbow up i guess
I'm trying to compliment their scrum strategy and you say the most obvious point then try make it about a munster player
If thats how you read it i suppose
point is that scrum strategy could just as easily be a Toulouse penalty
The first one did win Toulouse a penalty. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough about that. Porter goes down as soon as Mauvaka releases the jersey. It's happening at every scrum. Toulouse have done their homework on Porter.
I think Porter was actually pinged for pulling down on the jersey, rather than going down.
The Toulouse TH was full stretched out at every scrum, his technique was pretty crap in its own right.
At this stage the only conclusion I can make re:Porter is that he figures it's worth gambling on a ref not pinging his bind, to give him the chance to pull down and bore in
Let's move on. Match is over and will not be replayed. Congratulations to Toulouse on winning and commiserations to Leinster who put up a great fight but fell just short.
Dont think it matters either way, porters a weak scrummager but hes so good elsewhere hes still a bo brainer for leinster and ireland
I thought we looked livelier after vdF and Frawley came on.
Definitely though it is worth noteing for frawley in particular tolouse where playing kinghorn at 13 at that stage so possibly more space to attack.
Vdf possibly should have started but its all hindsight talking. I thought it was a good shout at half time
Never seen this before
Yes, even an inferior replacement might look better at first.
Both defences were excellent. Byrne is a good player but he looked a level below Ntamack and JGP, let alone the other lad. That’s a problem in a game of this standard.
That's mad, Ted
Some of the talk on byrnes been a bit harsh i think. Hes exactly what hes always been its not a sudden fall off a cliff
Shows how utterly nonsensical the metrics and “data” is - how a game that went to extra time and was so incredibly close throughout could have this kind of outturn is just stupid.
The entire Leinster front row dominated their opponents; and guys like Joe McCarthy, Robbie Henshaw and Caelan Doris had big games too, at a minimum.
Rather suggests no one should ever pay any heed to anything Oval Insights suggest from their data.
Ntamack is obviously class, but he was anonymous on Sat, arguably less impactful than Ross. Can't remember a single noteworthy moment from him
He was defensively superb. He won one absolutely massive turnover in the first half in their 22.
Agreed he was pretty quiet in attack. Same could be said of most of the Toulouse backline (sans Dupont).
Best individual performance in the final since, possibly going back to Sexton's comeback vs Northampton?
Maybe a shout for Itoje or Billy Vunipola in between, but this seemed to surpass them. DuPont is going to go down as an all-timer.
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