Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Is it me or does Sam's place kicking seem much improved? He seems to be putting a far better strike on the ball. Did he change something of late? He had some major issues earlier in the season and in the 6N with his place kicking. But today it appeared that it was back to where it used to be. I do remember that being a key strength for him when he first appeared on the scene, especially from distance.

Informative graphic from Brett Igoe as to where Leinster are struggling. Territory, possession and post contact metres are all very good. 12 entries into the Stormers 22 suggests we're doing really well to get into scoring positions.

But 1.6 points per entry is pretty crap really. We've a lot of issues with that aspect of our game. Was the same problem against Bordeaux. Once we got into the 22 our carries were double teamed and we couldn't get enough quick ball. And our attempts at disguising our back okay were too easily read.

Is there prejudice against coaches who weren't high level players at Leinster? Imagine having McNamara - one of the best attack coaches in the world - in their system and letting him go. Does a coach who wasn't a high level player have to have coached at Test level (Lancaster, Nienaber) before they'd be considered good enough for Leinster?

Look at the coaching staff - Cullen: one year as forwards coach before he became the supremo; Sean O'Brien: high level player who got his first coaching job with Leinster; Bleyendaal: good ex-player with not much coaching experience before coming on board; McBryde was a high level player who admittedly was also an assistant coach for Wales for a long time.

Playing and coaching are two different things, so to conflate playing ability with coaching ability when choosing a coach doesn't make sense.

Jacques Nienaber was never a pro player

Utterly tiresome

When Sean O'Brien was coming to the end we produced Leavy & Van der Flier, Jordan. Heaslip by Conan, Doris. Kearney by Keenan. BOD by Ringrose. Darce by Robbie (via Connacht). Nugget by Sheehan & Kelleher. Mike Ross by Furlong. Porter post Healy/Jack McGrath. Ryan by Dev. I know there's some overlap.

Just seems we're not producing quite as high-level replacements for our ageing players as before perhaps apart from LHP.

A small point, but just for the sake of accuracy, both Nugget and Mike Ross were via Munster.

Leinster didn’t release Noel McNamara or let him go either - he was offered and accepted a role with the Sharks; Leinster were frustrated to lose him as academy manager.

Indeed, Leinster are much closer to the top of the pile than a lot of people think or would like, well observed.

Incredible that that’s the conclusion you’ve come to

I'm Happy to see Usanov getting gametime. I don't think k he had a big impact on the last 2 games but that's part of the process for young props. Holding your own in a semi final is fine for a 20 year old prop with 10 caps.

Feel a bit sorry for Cahir but also appreciate this isn't a time to be sentimental. Looking forward to seeing how Usanov developes. I'll also support Cahir next year at Connacht. Its a charming story going from semi-pro to Leinster and holding his own.

Way too much of the postmortem after the final was “ah sure Bordeaux are class, we were just beaten by a better team”. 

Bordeaux are class and we were beaten by the better team. That is not the same as people saying we never had a chance which was your initial claim.

However, Bordeaux's inability to fight on two fronts must surely raise questions about whether they're really that far ahead of us. Northampton finished top of the premiership and couldn't get past the QFs of Europe, conceding 84 points in their two knockout games. Toulouse are favourites to retain their domestic crown (like us) but also couldn't get past UBB in Europe (like us) and crashed out at the semis last year (like us).

So the question remains, who are all these top teams that are so far ahead of us?

It is, as always, cherry-picking the positives of other teams and cherry-picking the negatives of Leinster, just to have a rant.

Nah, I'm not having that. They've been good this season, but they've looked ordinary at times too. They're a really good side, and I wouldn't be hugely confident facing them, but I certainly wouldn't agree Leinster are "so far off" them.

I'd have them as on a similar level to the likes of Bulls or Stormers.