Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

At this stage one would hope the players know enough themselves to overcome the obstacles they face. The biggest drawback to Leinster winning won't even be playing. Cullen may well prove to be the oppositions extra man.

That might be fair for in-season in the new RDS - if its consistently a sell out - but for the Aviva there have been so empty seats there that could easily have been partially filled with student / schools / clubs etc outreach.

We'll have to see how ticket numbers look in the RDS to know, though.

I think its just a slight amount of proactiveness across the board in terms of outreach thats been missing, and that will still be the case in the new RDS.

I really hope Leinster don’t break Paddy McCarthy rushing him back from what was supposed to be a season ending injury. They have the Ireland pack minus Beirne there. Surely they have enough firepower to live with Bordeaux without needing to rush back a young guy.

Like they did their job with Baird?

You haven't a clue what the story was with Baird.

Larmour being added I would imagine points to TOB not making it unfortunately. TOB, Ioane, Keenan, Lowe, JOB, Osbourne all cover and would be ahead in the pecking order. I'm probably jumping the gun but sounds to me as if it may be Osbourne at 12, Lowe Ioane Keenan back 3 with JOB at 23. Larmour as travelling reserve. Could be completely wrong but that's how I read it.

Another option I guess is Henshaw at 12, same back 3 with Osbourne at 23, JOB and Larmour both as travelling reserve.

Either way I don't think Larmour being added in good news for TOB.

Exactly. If we're allowed reregister previously registered players then what's the harm.

There's zero chance of JJ playing where as there is a slight chance of Jordan playing.

If nothing else it might give the UBB analysts slightly more work to do which in turn might make them miss something else. Extreme edge case but these are the 1% things that teams might look for

Is Larmour not the obvious replacement for TOB? considering he plays right wing and neither Ioane or Lowe do.

What would you rather Larmour at 14 or JL/RI?

Yeah we have no idea so just have to trust they're bringing him back because he's fit.

I really hope they're exaggerating TOB's injury and he's fit to play. ROG did that with Skelton that time and he was great that day.

No point speculating about whether they're fit because we don't have a clue.

I forgot about Jimmy to be fair.

Seems remiss to mention that season without talking about a certain spectacular 41-35 win over the defending champions Toulouse (in Toulouse) in the quarter finals. Still to this day one of my very favourite ever Leinster wins.

We were deservedly beaten in the semi final by Munster, but two late tries put a gloss on the scoreboard for them arguably.

We finished second in the Celtic League that season (behind Ulster), and won 14/20 games. All in I think we won 19 games that year out of 27, but as you say, had some frustrating sloppy losses along the way especially in Wales. We did well in the interpros that season - winning 5/6.

We have had darker seasons though than one where we came second in the league and lost a semi in Europe (to the eventual champions).

Farrell initially said Baird was out for the season. 'Reoccurence' of a broken leg afaik. Players can be brought back too early, we've seen it happen many times. There is a tension between the recommendations of the medical side and the needs of the team/coach. It's a real thing.

So at least one of Jimmy, Osborne, Frawley to miss out. Sam obviously to miss out as well.

Would go with Frawley and Osborne on the bench myself. Coverage for the entire backline, some positions covered a few times over.