How long left...?

[TrickyDicky]

I am concerned about the ever present Trial by TV culture that seems rampant nowadays with SKY Sports breathing down teams necks. Barnes and Dewi Morris already opened up Alan Quinlans way of winning ball at ruck time and litteraly called for refs to watch out for it as sometimes it was illegal...(or more than sometimes!). - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPtc-tgJxc

Wasnt soon after this that refs were whistling Munster off the park and all of a sudden, their attacking game was not as effective, reason being that SKY literally told the world how to counter attack it and for refs to be extra vigilant at the breakdown when Munster have taken it in.

Now, the key to Leinsters excellent attack is in part due to fantastic players. But the space for these players comes from outright obstruction. Look at the Heineken final - Sextons 1st try came from Heaslip standing in the way of one of the Northampton fellas and all of a sudden, he couldnt get back to his mark and the end result was a try for Leinster.

More evidence was only last week in Thomond when Hines came out of a ruck, loitered in front of Varley and Sexton attacked the space behind Hines that Varley should have been covering. Credit Munster's defence in this instance as Mafi and Barnes closed down Johnny. But the principle still remains.

It seems that our attacking patterns are based primarily on obstructing certain defenders with our forwards and letting Nacewa or whoever blast through the (illegal) space left.

This is a sign of winning teams and I am not complaining! However, how long will it be until SKY pick up on this and all of a sudden, our attack isnt as effective? Winning in Cardiff will only draw attention to this fact and I fear the end will come sooner than later!

[ronk]

The breakdown is always evolving. Munster were highlighted because they were ahead of the game in certain respects. There's always that search for an edge. This season the idea was to hold the tackled player up and trap the ball in the maul.

Munster's disciplinary problems aren't to do with refs, they're actually getting away with plenty but they're not being smart enough about it. All the stuff with Poite is hugely destructive to them, they're going too far too often when it comes to playing the ref. O'Callaghan was lucky to be on the pitch the other week and he was still trying to talk himself into worse than a yellow when he finally ran out of rope. Why blame the ref? There's no need for a conspiracy, I've played on enough mouthy teams who p1$$ off the ref enough that you can't blame him (or her) for taking a hard line.

England went through this a few years ago. The joke was going around that they trained with 14 players. Changing that took drastic measures, they brought in a ref to cover everything and they introduced an unwritten policy of immediately substituting and/or dropping players who get carded for stupidity, e.g. Ben Youngs against us this 6N.

Munster need to take drastic measures, so that it's obvious they've changed and so that players buy into it. But it takes strong leadership and that's something Munster don't have at the moment, O'Connell is too close to being a major culprit to set a good example, O'Gara is hot-headed and escalates things, the less said about Leamy --- the better.

[wixfjord]

Some gobshite behind me was spouting on about this in Thomond during the ML final. Apparaently, every wrap around move we do is highly illegal, and every single attack we make has obstruction in it.

There's a very, very fine line between obstruction and simply running your line, which you're entitled to do, and it's also incredibly hard to spot, I don't think we'll have any problems in this regard.

That wrap around move is something else though, literally undefendable when we have BOD and Darce playing.
I hope Johnny teaches Madigan and McKinley that!

[slum]

have to say, i completely disagree with the OP. Our back lines are based primarily on obstruction? must be a WUM.

[Darce]

So Dowson runs into Heaslip who's running a straight line, ergo the whole premise of our attacking system is obstruction and sharp practice.

Do me a favour mate

[hugonaut]

I am concerned about the ever present Trial by TV culture that seems rampant nowadays with SKY Sports breathing down teams necks. Barnes and Dewi Morris already opened up Alan Quinlans way of winning ball at ruck time and litteraly called for refs to watch out for it as sometimes it was illegal...(or more than sometimes!). - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPtc-tgJxc

Wasnt soon after this that refs were whistling Munster off the park and all of a sudden, their attacking game was not as effective, reason being that SKY literally told the world how to counter attack it and for refs to be extra vigilant at the breakdown when Munster have taken it in.

Now, the key to Leinsters excellent attack is in part due to fantastic players. But the space for these players comes from outright obstruction. Look at the Heineken final - Sextons 1st try came from Heaslip standing in the way of one of the Northampton fellas and all of a sudden, he couldnt get back to his mark and the end result was a try for Leinster.

More evidence was only last week in Thomond when Hines came out of a ruck, loitered in front of Varley and Sexton attacked the space behind Hines that Varley should have been covering. Credit Munster's defence in this instance as Mafi and Barnes closed down Johnny. But the principle still remains.

It seems that our attacking patterns are based primarily on obstructing certain defenders with our forwards and letting Nacewa or whoever blast through the (illegal) space left.

This is a sign of winning teams and I am not complaining! However, how long will it be until SKY pick up on this and all of a sudden, our attack isnt as effective? Winning in Cardiff will only draw attention to this fact and I fear the end will come sooner than later!

Yawn. The usual Munster conspiracy theory nonsense: Sky got Quinlan banned so that he'd miss the Lions and Croft would go, Sky highlighted how Munster cheated at the breakdown, a DVD showing Munster in the HEC was used by Paddy O'Brien when he was instructing refs how to legislate the new interpretations at the tackle ...

[Broken Wing]

Toulouse scored a try when Seanie was held back from getting to his line position. Saints scored a try when Shaggy was held back from getting to his line position.

Surely this one try from each team is sufficient evidence to show that Saints and Toulouse can only score tries by holding back defenders.

Nonsense theory and silly season can't be that silly already.

[BlueArmyOriginal]

How many line breaks and tries did we create this year and you've picked out 2 isolated and arguably out of context incidents to say that Leinster's entire attacking system is illegal? Only 13 weeks of Silly Season left

[CiaranIrl]

What an ignorant original post. It is so far from accurate that it isn't even worth challenging the slightest aspect of it. You made an account a couple of days ago, wrote three posts, and then come up with this bright spark thread? I assume that you are some eejit from Munster trying to cause an arguement.

[Dave Cahill]

What an ignorant original post. It is so far from accurate that it isn't even worth challenging the slightest aspect of it. You made an account a couple of days ago, wrote three posts, and then come up with this bright spark thread? I assume that you are some eejit from Munster trying to cause an arguement.

He might be the lad who sends videos of imagined Leinster transgressions to the ERC/ML

[Scott]

ThickyDicky (tm LM) strikes again

[combatlogo]

So Dowson runs into Heaslip who's running a straight line, ergo the whole premise of our attacking system is obstruction and sharp practice.

Do me a favour mate

He stopped though, in contravention of 10 (C), he knew exactly what he was doing.Thought it was Clark, not Dowson?

Shaggy being held by Wilson wasn't material, still should have been blown if spotted though.

Sky absolutely love De Liiiggggiiinnndddsss, the imaginary persecution complex is hilarious to behold.

[slum]

So Dowson runs into Heaslip who's running a straight line, ergo the whole premise of our attacking system is obstruction and sharp practice.

Do me a favour mate

He stopped though, in contravention of 10 (C), he knew exactly what he was doing.Thought it was Clark, not Dowson?

Shaggy being held by Wilson wasn't material, still should have been blown if spotted though.

Sky absolutely love De Liiiggggiiinnndddsss, the imaginary persecution complex is hilarious to behold.

Shaggy being held was crucial in the build up to their try. and heaslip did run straight. yes he knew what he was doing and he was on the very edge of legality but the NH player did his best to run into him too...

[olaf the fat]

So Dowson runs into Heaslip who's running a straight line, ergo the whole premise of our attacking system is obstruction and sharp practice.

Do me a favour mate

He stopped though, in contravention of 10 (C), he knew exactly what he was doing.Thought it was Clark, not Dowson?

Shaggy being held by Wilson wasn't material, still should have been blown if spotted though.

Sky absolutely love De Liiiggggiiinnndddsss, the imaginary persecution complex is hilarious to behold.

Shaggy being held was crucial in the build up to their try. and heaslip did run straight. yes he knew what he was doing and he was on the very edge of legality but the NH player did his best to run into him too...

That was just another attempted late tackle on Heaslip! I think the OP is watching way too much "Sunday Game".