Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Yeah, I'm not denying they're a good side and on a good run of form, with some parts of their game exceptionally strong, but that still doesn't make Leinster "so far off" them.

Montpellier have a lot of internationals in their wider squad, but not many who are current - i.e. they didn't lose a huge amount of players to the 6 Nations or anything like that.

Stomping all over the Challenge Cup doesn't carry a lot of weight for me tbh.

Leinster have lost 4 times this calendar year, but the defeats to Cardiff & Glasgow were 6 Nations vintage losses with shadow teams out.

Leinster haven't played great rugby this year, but the full strength team have lost 3 games all season (Munster, Benetton & Bordeaux).

Leinster are still, by any metric, one of the two or three best teams in European rugby (which includes the South African sides).

We lost the European Cup Final to a team of exceptional quality who also got virtually every conceivable bounce of a ball or decision they could have gotten, especially in the first 40 mins.

Since then - the team have responded by going out and winning two knock out games to get back to the final of the URC again.

When all is said and done, even if they come undone in the URC Final, there still won't be too many teams out there who can claim to be outperforming them.

Yeah, but it wasn't the result of a lottery or anything - they earned that path by topping their group and going undefeated in the pool stages.

Just to elaborate on this point -

This is the third time in the past decade Leinster have managed to get to the final of both the league and Europe - in 2018/19 we won the league final (over Glasgow) and lost the European Cup Final (to Saracens), in 2017/18 we won the league final (over Scarlets) and the European Cup Final (over Racing).

Over the past 10 years, Leinster have made the final of the URC on 6 occasions and the semi final on the other four occasions.

Over the same period, we've also made 6 European Cup Finals, the semi finals on 3 occasions and the Quarter Final once.

It's a frankly remarkable period of consistency and record of winning knock out games.

If you look at the games we lost over that period too - we've arguably lost in comprehensive fashion (where we were indisputably second best) on four occasions:

• this year's European Cup Final v Bordeaux (22 point loss)
• 2020/21 Semi Final v La Rochelle (9 point loss, but very much second best)
• 2018/19 European Cup Final v Saracens (10 point loss, we had some chances but felt second best on the day)
• 2016/17 Pro12 semi-final v Scarlets (12 point loss, very poor flat performance)

In 10 years, we've lost the sum total of 13 knock out games, by an average of 6.8 points. 7 of those losses were by a single score.

Over the same period - we've won 37 knock out games (74% of all knock out games), by an average of 19.7 points. 27 of our 37 wins were by double digit points (or more).

This year, we've played 5 knock games, won 4 of them (by an average of 22 points), and lost one (by 22 points), with one more still to come.

But the second it becomes a contest we seem to lose every time.

Is a semi-final not a contest? We win plenty of those. We got to the URC final last year and won, was that not a contest?

It's why I'm not totally against the thought of freshening up the coaching staff. But I do wrestle with it.

I think Leinster has been a successful club over the last decade and I don't think there's a club in world rugby who would turn their nose up at it if offered

We've won some tight ones:

• Toulon - 2025/26 Champions Cup - 4 point win
• Northampton - 2023/24 Champions Cup - 3 point win
• Ulster - 2018/19 Champions Cup - 3 point win
• Racing - 2017/18 Champions Cup Final - 3 point win
• Glasgow - 2018/19 URC Final - 3 point win
• Munster - 2017/18 URC - 1 point win

But I think your suggestion that more often than not we blow teams away when we win would be a fair one; i.e. we've faced Toulouse 4 times in this data set - hammering them in three semi finals (average winning margin of 20 points) and losing once in extra time in the final.

I think Leo does a phenomenal job at keeping the squad in a really strong place. His talent identification, minutes given to young players and management of the wider squad to keep guys getting sufficient gametime and happy to stay has been top class over the period.

When you assess the coaches below him though I think there is definitely scope for improvement.

I didn't hate the decision to bring in Jacques Nienaber, I thought it was a worthwhile punt at the time, albeit I think the decision to completely overhaul our defensive system was unnecessary, ill-advised and a waste of training minutes/resources. It doesn't really suit our playing squad (or the way the ruck is now being refereed), and I'd personally welcome Nienaber moving on.

Tyler Bleyendaal probably gets off too lightly too - granted, to be fair, we have a lot of turmoil and turnover in playing squad on a week to week basis, but our core attack looks a lot more stuttering and stilted this season.

Sean O'Brien is another one who, for me, deserves closer scrutiny. Our contact skills were always a big strength, but on the biggest days I feel this is a clear area where we lose games.

Robin McBryde - ironically for a guy who previously got a lot of flack, is probably doing the best job of our coaching group. Our set piece has been really good and reliable this season. We've had a disastrous season with prop injuries (especially at LHP), but even against some of the biggest scrummaging club sides in world rugby our scrum has generally held up and done well, and in the URC, the only scrums that have won more penalties than us this season are the Bulls (45 pens won) and the Stormers (64 pens won), with Leinster winning 39 penalties there (other Irish provinces: Ulster 11, Connacht 15, Munster 17).

The issue is though, I think if you were to try and bring in someone like Scott Robertson or Felipe Contempomi (post RWC) that neither would be satisfied with just having Nienaber's job, they'd likely want some combination of Cullen & Nienaber's role and have more absolute control.

If you're looking for a DOR type who knows the Irish system what about Nucifora?

That would be a thrilling appointment and I'd be onboard with it.

But it would never happen.

Also - who do you put as head coach?

Yeah, hard to see it happening.

But hypothetically if there was a head coach under Nucifora I'd like if it was a backs/attack specialist to go back to Leinster's historical identity of being a dangerous team with cutting edge in attack. Ex-second row Cullen's been there a long time now and development of forwards has been better than backs. Even Lancaster was a hooker and flanker during his playing days if I'm not wrong, so it's been quite a while since a backs specialist had the most prominent coaching role. Stephen Jones and Jared Payne spring to mind as possibilities. Wales played some irresistible attacking rugby when Jones was the attack coach under Pivac, and he's since coached in NZ with Moana Pacifika.