Connacht v Leinster

[Raydollard]

another shockingly inept performance. Why do we keep kicking position away all the time.

[All Blacks nil]

Leinster have now fielded their first choice back line 6 times this season , v Munster , the 4 Heineken Cup matches and tonight. In 5 of those 6 games ( Northampton the notable exception) Leinster have produced a total of three tries with Darcy's try tonight the first scored by a back. SOB and McGrath scored the others.

but if you add the 6 tries against saints, its better - if we are going to use statistics to dam our play we cant conveniently leave out what does not compute!

The Saints game proved we CAN play rugby - we just need to find that key again, but we were never going to unlock that on a blustery wet night in Galway - we never have. But we still won, and I for one believe we will do so again next Sunday in France.

The Saints game is proof that you can play. Stunning accuracy helped by Saints unforced errors ( knocking on when toe tapping a mark after one minute set the tone), nonexistent defensive line speed, basic fullback try conceding errors. Leinster were seriously good but Saints were seriously bad as they sometimes can be at home. (Luke Fitz the second Irish left wing to score a hat trick away to them in Franklin Gardens)

To say I am skewing the stats by not including the six try haul v Saints is true , but including that game also skews a more serious stat, that the Leinster first choice backline has only scored a total of one try in 400 minutes rugby in those 5 games.

Which stat is more representative?

Incidentally I will never write Leinster or Munster off anywhere in Europe apart from Clermont and I do fancy Leinster on Sunday

[paulmpb]

Winning badly has been our MO this season. We played badly, but not our worst (Glasgow away has that honour for me). BUT we have had good performances - Scarlets away, Ospreys away in HC, Northampton away in HC, Ulster last week spring to mind. I think it's a side showing plenty of potential, but we suffer a lot in bad weather. Need to improve our bad weather form and build on our good weather form and be the team we know we can be.

[ceemec]

Christ almighty, tough crowd. We were utterly destroyed here last season, lest we forget.

First things first, the opening half was an abomination. We lacked cohesion completely. Our attack looked like several individuals trying to do things. If someone made a half break, nobody was near. Our passes weren't sticking. We struggled to get territory or any quick ball. Madigan and BOD were very poor. I've no idea what BOD was thinking for the try. He came up into no man's land, way off his own man to try and take D'Arcy's man. He made the try for Connacht more than them doing it themselves. Given the selection, that was the worst I've seen us play possibly this season.

But, the second half was a completely different story. That was a textbook win against a dogged side, away from home in brutal conditions. We clearly changed the plan at half time and decided we were going to strangle the game and play territory, taking the game to them with a good kick chase on box kicks and forwards carrying. Connacht barely got possession in our half for the second period. Boss guided things really well from the base of the ruck with his box kicking. Guys like Jordi Murphy and the Kearney brothers put serious pressure on Connacht from them and we ended up turning the screw and winning the kicking battle.

Gopperth came on and kept it simple. Aside from one poor dink through that went out on the full, he was solid, kicked his goals and probed well with the boot. Our pack though really took the game by the scruff and we dominated them up front. Heaslip was excellent (but marred it with a stupid challenge). Jack McGrath started to motor. Murphy had another good game (I think the MOTM award was a bit of a flavour of the month effort though). McCarthy was dominant in the physical stakes.

I was very concerned at half time, not with the score as I always reckoned this was going to be on a knife edge but with just how poor and disjointed we were. But we showed we could adjust the plan, make changes (and make them early) and execute a winning plan.

After 12 games last season, 35 points. After 12 games this season, 40 points. Boo bloody hoo.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I'm not sure why people think Connacht played well and for once I'm not just happy with a win. After the first two HC games a lot of people were really disappointed with the performances and I have to say I thought it was nonsense. I thought we put it in two really smart and controlled performances and looked pretty solid at set piece and in defence. For me that's exactly what a new coach should be looking for and was delighted at that point. Our attacking game needed work and I can understand why people weren't happy with it but I expected it to come on.

As Dave said a couple of pages back though, it wasn't that people played poorly or it just didn't come together, it was that we employed brain dead tactics for the majority of the 80 mins.

I can understand how MOC might have come to the conclusion before the game that it was going to be tough conditions and Connacht's back three are either inexperienced or not exactly famous for their prowess under a high ball. Combine that with that the fact that we had a back three that, to a man, are sensational under the high ball and the tactic makes sense.

However, he negated that big time by picking Reddan at 9. Reddan has many strengths but none of them involve kicking. Every single kick he hit was too long and gave our chasers no chance. He also picked Madigan who, whilst he is a fine kicker on his day, should not be picked to play that kind of game IMO and especially when Gopperth is available and more suited to it. I wouldn't have been happy with Boss and Gopperth kicking the leather off the ball all day but if the tactic worked and we escaped with a win then fine, I'd have been grateful for a win in Galway. Job done, move on.

The way things worked out though, it was a joke. Not only did our kicking game not work, but our running game DID work yet was cast aside. We weren't exactly shredding them apart at will but McGrath, Cronin, the entire back row, Darce, and the entire back three all looked good and made yards when we did run with the ball...so why on earth did we ignore that and persist with a tactic that wasn't working?

I'm not buying into Connacht playing well or really turning up because it was Leinster, it's not hard to look good if the other team kicks the ball to you all day and doesn't put you under any pressure. It was brain dead from us, pure and simple. There was very little tactically that actually contributed to that win, we really did fluke it.

[meathman3]

think they're might be too much panic - players just wanted to survive out there and get the win - expect much better things nxt week - hopefully anyway....

[cwebber82]

Would be surprised if Madigan is picked to start next week. He might well have played himself out of the starting 15.

I've always had doubts about Madigan. He's clearly a very talented rugby player but it's the mental side of the game I worry about with him. He is only 24 so he has time to develop that side of his game. However he gets compared to Carlos Spencer a fair bit and Spencer was very erratic right up to when he retired. It was just in his nature. I hope Madigan doesn't go the same way, matures well and develops into a world class number 10.

On the win tonight...there were plenty of these type of performances under Schmidt. It wasn't sublime rugby under Joe every week. Take the win and move on.

[ronk]

I like to see some winning spirit. We worked our way back into the game and got stronger as we went on.

That was an easy fixture to lose.

[Mackman15]

I hate being such a grinch but I'm still not right after last nights performance. 'Take the points and move on....' Is one thing, but really, what on earth is going on?

Surely after an hour of kicking the ball away we'd have worked out that we were getting nothing from it.
Let's just hope we can pull it together for the next fortnight

[ceemec]

I'll have to watch this game again but, to my mind, the kicking game was working really well in the second half. Boss's box kicking was on the money and was putting Connacht under all sorts of pressure as we were winning the battle up front and forcing Connacht to make mistakes and hand us back possession even when they collected cleanly just inside their own half.

In terms of the longer kicking, we were winning that battle, forcing Connacht to kick from deeper and deeper until we were collecting the kick significantly further up the pitch and in a position to start going through the forwards and carrying into Connacht territory. Or, on several occasions, Connacht kicked to touch handing us line out ball well up the field.

Tactical kicking like this makes complete sense in lashing rain and it was a central reason that we played the vast bulk of the second half in the Connacht half. You don't have to find touch or win an up and under for it to be a very useful kick.

[Cianostays]

Match Report: http://cianostays1985.wordpress.com/201 ... -leinster/

[sid]

The way things worked out though, it was a joke. Not only did our kicking game not work, but our running game DID work yet was cast aside. We weren't exactly shredding them apart at will but McGrath, Cronin, the entire back row, Darce, and the entire back three all looked good and made yards when we did run with the ball...so why on earth did we ignore that and persist with a tactic that wasn't working?

I didn't think we were making anywhere near enough yards to be able to run from inside our own half without getting penalized or turned over. It could have just been my impression watching it at the time, but I remember thinking that we did have to kick - just not as badly as we were doing.

[Fireworks]

Where I am happy is that we won even if it was bad ugly. There is such a thing as good ugly which I would define as going out to play ugly. We sort of fell in to it. But we have the 4 points and apparently no injuries. We also got some serious defensive training in and got rid of the cobwebs so it will have been a good warm up for next week.

Where I am nervous is where the team is going. It takes time for a new coach to get things going his way and it is extremely tough to follow Joe. However we have only seen a few flashes of good play all year. I will accept that some of the dull wins were us playing a style to suit the opposition and that is fine but there is no consistency. I am happy to judge the coach on next season rather than this one with the hope that he will get them motoring towards a good end of season. I worry that the standout performance away to saints was a product of the guys all playing together against NZ under Joe and that the loss the next week was a product of MOC coaching and focus.

I am happy to support him in everything he does this season and next but I would like to get a hint of where they are going.

[cormac]

After 12 games last season, 35 points. After 12 games this season, 40 points. Boo bloody hoo.

We took 42 points off the same opposition in these fixtures last season. It's starting to remind me a lot of the 09/10 season. Plenty of hard-fought wins without really playing that well mixed in with the occasional bravura performance.

[Laighindown]

Where I am happy is that we won even if it was bad ugly. There is such a thing as good ugly which I would define as going out to play ugly. We sort of fell in to it. But we have the 4 points and apparently no injuries. We also got some serious defensive training in and got rid of the cobwebs so it will have been a good warm up for next week.

Where I am nervous is where the team is going. It takes time for a new coach to get things going his way and it is extremely tough to follow Joe. However we have only seen a few flashes of good play all year. I will accept that some of the dull wins were us playing a style to suit the opposition and that is fine but there is no consistency. I am happy to judge the coach on next season rather than this one with the hope that he will get them motoring towards a good end of season. I worry that the standout performance away to saints was a product of the guys all playing together against NZ under Joe and that the loss the next week was a product of MOC coaching and focus.

I am happy to support him in everything he does this season and next but I would like to get a hint of where they are going.

The difference in the two Northampton games was Sean O'Brien. He is the best player in the NH as far as I'm concerned. Rugby is a simple game, you front up and reap the rewards, the margins were small in the first game and they were small in the second game. Given how much time he will spend injured (I don't think he'll go to France), we need Dom Ryan and Jordi Murphy getting games and getting to as high a level as possible. He really is that valuable to us, and when you remove Healy from the equation as well, we're too short of carriers from first up ball. We need to move away from the idea that we can play at the level of the 2011/12 teams without Sexton, O'Brien, Healy, Nacewa, Cullen and with BOD and Jenno on the wane - it can't happen, and we need to respect the fact that a new team is emerging still capable of playing extraordinarily well when playing with a full hand, and still capable of digging out a win when we're a little short.

[Donny B.]

Tactical kicking like this makes complete sense in lashing rain and it was a central reason that we played the vast bulk of the second half in the Connacht half. You don't have to find touch or win an up and under for it to be a very useful kick.

It wasn't lashing rain, it was a mild drizzle and it probably the least windy I've ever experienced at the sportsground.

We didn't adapt to the weather to grind out a win, we played shite and got very lucky from two TMO decisions that we'd be raging about if they went against us.

To my mind, they did what so many Leinster teams have done in the past, looked at our teamsheet versus their's and thought "handy win". All our internationals, nearly 2/3s of the team that will start next week versus a team with two academy lads in key positions, loads of injuries and two of their most experienced players left on the bench in Parks and Naoupu. If Leinster went to any other Pro12 team with two similiar team selections they'd win by 20 points.

But this is Connacht and they always give us a game down there. If we put out a team of Lions against their under-20s they'd still give us a tough game. Forget about the daft tactics, our attitude was poor, just like it was away to Edinburgh and at home to Northampton.

One of the greatest things Joe Schmidt brought to Leinster was a real sense of humility in the squad. No matter how good they were playing there was always respect for the opponents. I know we got slaughtered down in Connacht last season but that was more to us fielding a severely weakened team.

I'm slightly worried that that old self-destructive arrogance that haunted us for years has begun to seep back into the squad a little bit under MOC.

[artaneboy]

Leinster have now fielded their first choice back line 6 times this season , v Munster , the 4 Heineken Cup matches and tonight. In 5 of those 6 games ( Northampton the notable exception) Leinster have produced a total of three tries with Darcy's try tonight the first scored by a back. SOB and McGrath scored the others.

but if you add the 6 tries against saints, its better - if we are going to use statistics to dam our play we cant conveniently leave out what does not compute!

The Saints game proved we CAN play rugby - we just need to find that key again, but we were never going to unlock that on a blustery wet night in Galway - we never have. But we still won, and I for one believe we will do so again next Sunday in France.

The Saints game is proof that you can play. Stunning accuracy helped by Saints unforced errors ( knocking on when toe tapping a mark after one minute set the tone), nonexistent defensive line speed, basic fullback try conceding errors. Leinster were seriously good but Saints were seriously bad as they sometimes can be at home. (Luke Fitz the second Irish left wing to score a hat trick away to them in Franklin Gardens)

To say I am skewing the stats by not including the six try haul v Saints is true , but including that game also skews a more serious stat, that the Leinster first choice backline has only scored a total of one try in 400 minutes rugby in those 5 games.

Which stat is more representative?

Incidentally I will never write Leinster or Munster off anywhere in Europe apart from Clermont and I do fancy Leinster on Sunday

Okay- we'll do the self-flagellation ourselves (tautology, I know) thank you! Good of you to advise on the statistical measurement of our crappy-ness- but a bit of perspective needed in your analysis.

We were poor in many respects last night- but the only stat that matters is that we are second in the Rabo and top of the pool in the Heineken. Am I happy? Not estatic- but I believe we have seen the signs of what we can do, when we get it right.

It should be as much a caution to the other teams in Europe that a spluttering Leinster are still not just competing- but competing strongly.

As to Luke versus DK; I'm a big fan of Dave and his continued upward trajectory- but Luke is both the form player and the classier skill-set.

[Laighindown]

I hate being such a grinch but I'm still not right after last nights performance. 'Take the points and move on....' Is one thing, but really, what on earth is going on?

Surely after an hour of kicking the ball away we'd have worked out that we were getting nothing from it.
Let's just hope we can pull it together for the next fortnight

Kicking the ball away in those conditions was the right thing to do. Just because a kick isn't gathered doesn't mean it's not a great move. On a number of occasions, in the first half and moreso the second, the kick was fielded by Connacht who were then turned over under pressure with a net gain of 30/40 yards for Leinster. Fact is, Leader out fought Kearney in the air - Kearney(s) had time to get there but didn't - maybe with half an eye on keeping fit for next week, but you can't fault the tactic of pitching the Kearney's against the young gun. The young gun won! Madigan kicked ok, he found grass on a few occasions and always gave the chase enough time - the chase lacked intensity and vigour. That will always make a kicking game look bad, but the intensity was much better as the game went on.

Dom Ryan changed this a lot in the second half (the whole packed up their intensity) - in fact he and Murphy chased one or two kicks to great effect, and Ryan competed better at the breakdown, putting Connacht under more pressure. There was also a switch in tactic to try to find touch and get behind Connacht rather than engage in an aerial duel, and we pinned them back.

On Madigan, he did well, suffered from not being on the pitch for most of the time when the pack turned up the heat. He put in a great reverse kick behind Carr to put us in their 22, kept their backrow busy with half breaks. Gopperth took his own chance well enough also, but I think Madigan will be retained for next week.

[artaneboy]

Tactical kicking like this makes complete sense in lashing rain and it was a central reason that we played the vast bulk of the second half in the Connacht half. You don't have to find touch or win an up and under for it to be a very useful kick.

It wasn't lashing rain, it was a mild drizzle and it probably the least windy I've ever experienced at the sportsground.

We didn't adapt to the weather to grind out a win, we played shite and got very lucky from two TMO decisions that we'd be raging about if they went against us.

To my mind, they did what so many Leinster teams have done in the past, looked at our teamsheet versus their's and thought "handy win". All our internationals, nearly 2/3s of the team that will start next week versus a team with two academy lads in key positions, loads of injuries and two of their most experienced players left on the bench in Parks and Naoupu. If Leinster went to any other Pro12 team with two similiar team selections they'd win by 20 points.

But this is Connacht and they always give us a game down there. If we put out a team of Lions against their under-20s they'd still give us a tough game. Forget about the daft tactics, our attitude was poor, just like it was away to Edinburgh and at home to Northampton.

One of the greatest things Joe Schmidt brought to Leinster was a real sense of humility in the squad. No matter how good they were playing there was always respect for the opponents. I know we got slaughtered down in Connacht last season but that was more to us fielding a severely weakened team.

I'm slightly worried that that old self-destructive arrogance that haunted us for years has begun to seep back into the squad a little bit under MOC.

Ah hold on now, blaming MOC on a change of attitude does not stand up on either an nalysis of a change in the record or the timelines. We got a hiding down there last season under Joe. What about the 'great escape' against Exeter in the HC last year- or the loss to Clermont following the bonus point hard-earned awy to them. Were they not as maddening as Saints in the Aviva, Edinburgh and last night? Were last year's dissappointments not as much a harbringer of the feared "arrogance" as a hard earned win? And there's plenty of examples of similar bad perfromances to Connacht and others over the years of Joe's glorious rule. I know you're not content with MOC- but it won't do to pin a creeping arrogance on him- especially when none is evident.

As to the TMO, I thought he got the D'Arcy call right- according to the rules. Sure we'd have been mad if it had gone against us- but they generally balance out- and if we didn't really deserve (whatever that means ) to win- cedrtainly the Westies did not earn it either. They hardly threatened in the second half.

It was terribly fristrating- but we still won to defeat a team that traditionally plays well above themeselves when facing us. Second in the league, still leading the HC pool... not too shabby, as in all?

[Donny B.]

As to Luke versus DK; I'm a big fan of Dave and his continued upward trajectory- but Luke is both the form player and the classier skill-set.

Not sure where it became a case or one of the other. They're our form wings and they should both play next week, with Kirchner, who has still to show he can really offer much from the wing, back on the bench.

Boss and Gopperth to start next week too. Gopperth ain't perfect, there's always an unforced error or two in him every game, but on current form he deserves the nod. Madigan has been poor since Northampton away. Boss too is the man for next week, Reddan's box-kicking last night was appalling.

I think we should go for

RK
DK
BOD
Darce
Luke
Gopperth
Boss

McGrath
Cronin
Ross
Toner
McCarthy
Rhys
Jordi
Heaslip