Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

I keep waiting for Cahir to run out of luck or adrenaline or whatever I presumed was fueling his performances. But it hasn't happened. He seems like he might be a solid pro. Probably not going to give the Ireland selectors much to think about, but we'll worth his place in the squad.

I'd favour giving him a contract for next year to see what he can do with a full pre-season, rather than bringing in Dooley.

No offence to Dooley. He's sound, but I want to know how Cahir develops.

Potential semifinals out of last weekends Quarter-finals apart from the 2 top teams if Leinster could have picked an openent from Bath, Toulon, Glasgow, Northampton it definitely would be Toulon.

I see they've signed 2 big name centres for next year

He'd get a better job off the back of having the rugby experience I'm sure.

Team is out for the Ulster game.

Very strong starting backline, but the pack is relatively weak.

15. Hugo Keenan (79)
14. Joshua Kenny (12)
13. Garry Ringrose (145)
12. Robbie Henshaw (117)
11. Jimmy O’Brien (114)
10. Sam Prendergast (45)
9. Luke McGrath (251)

1. Jerry Cahir (11)
2. Rónan Kelleher (89)
3. Thomas Clarkson (72)
4. Brian Deeny (50)
5. James Ryan (105) CAPTAIN
6. Alex Soroka (25)
7. Scott Penny (101)
8. James Culhane (24)

Replacements:
16. Gus McCarthy (26)
17. Ed Byrne (102)
18. Rabah Slimani (32)
19. Conor O’Tighearnaigh (9)
20. Max Deegan (154)
21. Will Connors (64)
22. Fintan Gunne (29)
23. Ciarán Frawley (118)

Ulster's selection, far closer to full strength:

1 Angus Bell (13)

2 Tom Stewart (71)

3 Tom O’Toole (138)

4 Iain Henderson (C) (175)

5 Cormac Izuchukwu (50)

6 David McCann (87)

7 Sean Reffell (15)

8 Juarno Augustus (13)

9 Nathan Doak (105)

10 Jack Murphy (30)

11 Zac Ward (25)

12 Stuart McCloskey (215)

13 James Hume (116)

14 Werner Kok (31)

15 Jacob Stockdale (147)

Replacements:

16 James McCormick (15)

17 Sam Crean (16)

18 Scott Wilson (53)

19 Harry Sheridan (57)

20 Bryn Ward (15)

21 Conor McKee (18)

22 Jake Flannery (35)

23 Jude Postlethwaite (43)

Nick Timoney & Rob Herring seem to be the two injuries / omissions from last week.

Suprised they would risk James Ryan even if he only gets 50 minutes

Yeah, I feel the same. Given it's Ulster, who are right up there competing for a top 4 spot too, a win here would have had a meaningful impact on the table.

On the flip side - seeing reports on Leinsterfans that a lot more players are carrying heavy knocks from last week than reported in the injury report on Monday, and a lot of our core internationals have a lot of miles on the clock in high intensity games already this season.

It's just the reality, competing on two fronts while being bulk supplier to the national team is really tough to manage.

We just don't have the same ball carrying impact in our pack this week at all. Outside of Penny and Kelleher, I don't really rate any of the rest of our starting forwards as hugely impactful ball carriers.

The absence of Sheehan, Joe McCarthy, Conan, Doris, JVDF is heavily felt in this regard, without including the longer term injured guys like Paddy McCarthy, RG Snyman etc.

It's very arguable here that on a full strength selection if everyone is fit, likely only Hugo Keenan, Garry Ringrose & James Ryan would be in the team.

In an effort to reduce the toxic nature of online comments, Jiarán Crawley has been genetically engineered by IRFU's best scientists to create a perfect cross-provincial number 10.

Pound for pound I don't think we're too much weaker than Ulster frankly.

Head to head I think we're about 50/50 in a combined team.

The bigger factor here is Ulster are the form team. They're well coached. All of their players are playing well.

I want to see a big performance here form James Culhane. He's 23 now and I'm not seeing the performances that Max Deegan was putting out at that age.

Could be a very tough day for Sam with a lack of firepower in the pack. Not a huge amount of big ball carriers.

Ulster have had reasonable success against us in recent years and the blue print was always simple. Stop our ball carriers early. They did it well.

Our backrow and on average second row is not as strong as theirs at all imo (Ryan being the one player who stands out for Leinster there) and will be the losing of the game.