EPCR finals weekend match thread

Broken clocks, thousand monkeys with typewriters etc etc.

Take your pick

You call it the workout. I suspect you mean the alternative. And indeed it is true I did not provide an alternative. And I have no answer to that. I am not a rugby coach. All I can say is what I see. It's up to the likes of Murphy and Lancaster to provide the answers.

What I would say is there has to be an alternative to trying to beat your head off a brick wall which is what both Ulster and Leinster did. Surely you can be smarter than that

If only the English/French leagues weren't overly strong then maybe a 'European/UK/SA club superleague could be a thing'

The most impressive thing is the way Toulouse and Bordeaux have been so good mostly with indigenous players. They have signed a few very good foreign players like every other club but they are shrewd signings and not superstars.

Really. Leinster and Ireland are brute force teams. Being brute force they will beat some teams but when it comes to business end brute force is not going to beat the best. It's far too brain dead.

What did Culldn find so funny? Either the team played to management's instructions in which case management should resign or be sacked...or they didn't play to management's instructions in which case he should be livid. Either way this was no laughing matter. Leinster were toothless in attack and reminded me a bit of Ireland in the latter days of Uncle Joe's tenure.

As regards the team, I think they played their hearts out and were carried out on their shields. But... it seems obvious that some have passed their best-before date...probably ok for the URC but sadly no longer up to CC levels.

Cullen looked like he was on something in his post match interview. His mention of Joey Carbury was crazy. It may be the case but it was the most inappropriate time to mention it.

He looked like a man unraveling. Was actually tough to watch

That is true. Credit to JGP. He got every possible yard out of his clearing kicks. Otherwise it would have been twice as bad

Depends how you define “indigenous”.

Bielle-Biarrey is French but he was signed from Grenoble. Lucu from Biarritz, Penaud from Clermont, Moefana from Colomiers. I think Jalibert is the only one of their superstars who’s properly home-grown, Woki maybe?

Or where would Toulouse be if they hadn’t signed DuPont from Castres?

The stats became irrelevant after 40 minutes.

If you want to analyse the stats then it’s only the first half that matters. Bordeaux coasted for the second half and were happy to let Leinster do whatever they wanted as they were 28 points up.

Slightly off topic but I watched both matches on ITV4. Analysis with Zebo and Madigan amongst others. Have I been missing out over the years and not realising the matches were free to air on that channel?

UBB scored on every 22 entry bar one in the first half! Other stats don't really matter when you have game that tactically end runs around your opponent's defense. They did their arm wrestling in mid field and went to KBA in the red zone.

French rugby has gone for speed and off loading for years and the likes of UBB and Toulouse (Montpellier too) have turned it into an art form. Leinster's previous style under Lancaster (and Joe) was closer to what's happening now in rugby, with the addition of a variable kicking game to exploit the new rules, but Leinster and Irish teams (other than Connacht maybe) are not tracking the state of the art. Bringing in Nienbar was fighting the last war, the game moved on.