Leinster V Ulster

[Keith]

It has to be said that These semi finals have been great for the league and should surely put the whole "Irish teams don't try in the league" arguement firmly put to bed. These games were far better than the Top 14 playoff games (certainly the Toulon Racing game. That was just awful) where the teams were terrified of losing.

Can the media and pundits finally start to talk up the league now, instead of constantly putting it down?

[goreyguy]

we won in spite of MOC

[Bogger]

we won in spite of MOC

+1...the more I see the less I like..

[ceemec]

we won in spite of MOC

Thank Christ he doesn't coach the defence which was the difference between winning and losing.

[hugonaut]

we won in spite of MOC

For f*ck's sake.

[Logorrhea]

we won in spite of MOC

For f*ck's sake.

Its pathetic stuff isn't it.

[ronk]

Well that's a debate killer.

[[Jackass]]

Best atmosphere at the RDS for a long time. Other than the final last year of course (also against Ulster), struggling to remember a better atmosphere. The "fan" debate can rage on, and the singing initiatives and "new traditions" and what have you, but there's no question we're not a patch on Ulster when it comes to creating an atmosphere. We fed off their fans tonight, but something tells me that the atmosphere with 16 / 18,000 Leinster fans versus 2,000 Glasgow fans in a final wont be a patch on 10,000 Leinster fans versus 8,000 Ulster fans in a semi-final. They made the atmosphere tonight and we should continue to look inwards as to why we rely on visiting fans to lift us to a level of hysteria that the RDS became tonight, but when it's full of just Leinster fans we never even come close to achieving.

Regarding the match, I thought Ulster were the better team over 80 minutes and controlled much of the game. As usual we relied on a moment of individual brilliance to win the game rather than any team effort or overall game plan. Defence was good, but as usual, we were utterly appalling in just about every aspect of the game....but still won.

Would anyone like to share an opinion on why we turned down four shots at goal in the first half for a return of zero points?

"We were utterly appalling in just about every aspect of the game"?

Apart from defense, which is half the game. Man for man, Ulster have probably the most talented backline in the league – Pienaar, Bowe, Trimble, Payne, Gilroy, Jackson, Cave – and we didn't concede a try, even when we lost three outside backs to injury and played the last twelve minutes with two fullbacks, two outhalves and two scrum-halves on the pitch.

We were on top in the scrum for the majority of the game, and had them under a lot of pressure on their own ball. Maybe we could have got more out of it with a different ref, but who can tell. Dev Toner won two brilliant steals on their lineout, and while on the surface they were 'moments of individual brilliance', getting a 125kg man in the air in time to pinch ball from a well organised opposition line-out is a unit skill. He didn't get up there on his own.

In the aerial game, our kick depth and chase was absolutely first rate. We consistently arrived man and ball and hardly ever gave them opportunities to counter-attack. Gopperth's goal-kicking was 100%, and in a tight game like that, every kick was a pressure kick. I thought that most of our line kicking was very, very good – we got very good territorial gains of 25m+ from both Gopperth and Rob Kearney, and the latter was striking the ball more consistently and with greater length than he has done all season.

We made great line breaks and big territorial inroads through Jimmy Gopps, Dave Kearney, Dev Toner, Cian and Madser. Most importantly, we showed balls of brass to come back from 9-0 down. Both O'Connor and Heaslip used the phrase 'a mountain to climb' in their post-match interviews, but both were too modest to add that we climbed it.

We struggled quite a bit in ball retention, but they've got two of the most disruptive breakdown exponents in Europe in their team in Rory Best and Chris Henry, guys who stand out at test level for their work at the breakdown. Just like Mitrea on Friday night, Hodges let a lot go at the breakdown for both sides and as a result it was a massively competitive area. Some of our ball presentation wasn't up to par and we had some knock-ons and a charge-down, but we had a very rusty scrum-half who hadn't played a minute of rugby in six weeks and who put in a huge 80-minute effort.

We've got 34 and 35 year old centres in D'Arcy [who had a headless game] and Drico and while they give us quality defense in the middle of the pitch, we've got very little pace or threat in the middle of the park when we have the ball. That is what it is. Both of the lads have had long seasons – Darce hasn't played this many games for Leinster since the 09/10 season, when he was 29/30 – and haven't got much left to give in terms of attack.

Ulster are a first rate team. They went unbeaten through their HEC pool stages [including home and away wins over French and English semi-finalists this season in Montpellier and Leicester] and have been at the top table in Europe for the last three or four years. They had huge motivation coming into this game with the imminent retirement of their captain [that was Johann Muller's last ever game of competitive rugby] and having lost both games to us this season.

Against Edinburgh last week, we were actually appalling. Edinburgh are a poor team who can claim to be mid-table at best and had nothing to play for.

This game was not even related to an appalling performance. It was an extremely hard-fought semi-final contest between two interprovincial rivals stocked with Six Nations winners and Lions and a couple of World Cup winners in Muller and Pienaar to boot. We won our last Pro12 semi-final against Glasgow [2012-13] by two points, and the 2011-12 semi by four points. Semi-finals in the Pro12 are tough, tough games.

Ah, a fist full of straws right there.

Let's not bring in "He's old and the other lads are just tremenjus!" We were dominated at the breakdown when it really mattered, couldn't get out of our half with the ball in the first 40, didn't turn over ball from relentless pressure, I seem to recall disruption just about got us out of jail forcing errors, our lineout was poor, a couple of turnovers but also ball we did win was hardly being used in sublime first phase moves (you know, coaching stuff), we lost the territorial battle for about 70 minutes of the game, even with a handful of missed kicks to touch from Ulster, we made individual breaks but not off any flowing backline play, seemed to me that anything good that came was ad libbed, you're completely focusing on some individuals talent rather than anything specific to a coached game plan and using excuses of age of our players and standard of theirs ... we've as good a 15 as anyone, and we're a tough team and have good players (as I mentioned our defence was very good to be fair), but to even suggest there was any degree of accuracy or structure to that win is lunacy, that was 15 players who (yet again, as usual) arm wrestled a result for lack of any cutting edge. The fact that we look the same against Edinburgh as we do Ulster would be a good indication that opposition doesn't matter when you're just trying to beat teams with brute force, an individual spark and not much else.

As for the scrum, not that that's MOCs remit, but when you have a Lions losehead against an academy loosehead playing tighthead, you'd better expect to get some change from that area.

There's defending something on merit and there's defending something for the sake of it. You're completely and utterly overstating any kicking game advantage we had and a much stronger bench gave us the advantage with catching up in the stats on making linebreaks. Again, a privilege afforded by squad, not anything to do with coaching. If you want evidence of this, look at the stats of last quarter scores by Leinster, they're pretty high, they've saved our bacon quite a few times, and it's a great luxury to have two international first XVs to be able to put out over most teams not able to field one.

When you watch Leinster play this season, do you honestly think "wow, this team plays some accurate, concise rugby. I'm glad they don't bosh every single ball in midfield to punch holes, those moves off first phase set-piece ball really highlight MOCs background as a backs coach and I'd hate to see us rely purely on power and squad depth, because if we met a team with more power and better squad depth we'd look like a completely headless team with no game plan other than kick it to mitchell + ? = try time!"

[ronk]

We were are well drilled team playing hard for each other with really good discipline.

Badly coached players don't play like that.

We've developed a power game and improved that aspect of how we play. We'd be in trouble if we didn't. Almost all our players are in form. We're attacking and probing in the 9 channel.

[ceemec]

Let's not bring in "He's old and the other lads are just tremenjus!" We were dominated at the breakdown when it really mattered, couldn't get out of our half with the ball in the first 40, didn't turn over ball from relentless pressure, I seem to recall disruption just about got us out of jail forcing errors, our lineout was poor

You need to watch the game again and step away from the keyboard.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

On another note, I was less than impressed with Roux again. He was all arms and hands when trying to make his tackles rather than going through someone and putting his shoulder into them. A very ineffective performance from him, really. Hopefully McCarthy is back next week to start with Cullen coming in again with 25 minutes left.

Actually thought he started well but then drifted out of it. Understandable given the intensity of the game and his lack of minutes on the pitch.

Dev was great and I wouldn't exactly argue with anyone who had him as man of the match but I thought Henderson was the best player on the pitch yesterday. Aside from one penalty (which may have been unlucky) I thought he was immense and really put a marker down in terms of his Ireland prospects. How good was Dev's pick up and Bosch though?? Such a pity it was called back for an earlier knock on!

As everyone has said, our defence was incredible.

Our attack was much better than it has been too but still lots of work to do. I said before the game that I didn't want us to kick TO Trimble etc but that's exactly what we did for the most part. I know Hugonaut said that the kick chase was really impressive but I didn't quite see it that way and certainly didn't think we got many gains from it. I was crying out for us to kick in behind them and on the rare occasions that we did it worked very well.

Also thought Reddan had a mixed bag. Some poor kicking and the decision to kick at the end was brain dead. No problem with him having a run when we had advantage but to then boot it down the field and invite Ulster back onto us was just stupid. All we had to do was take our time kicking down the line, secure the line out and hold the ball for a few seconds.

[Oldschool]

In summary cont.
You just knew after Madigans first play that he was going to make a MOCkery of the selection policy.
Gopperth played for himself. D'Arcy made some juvenile errors.
Leinster with a rusty Redfon still looked a streets better team than with Boss.
That last one is why people are right to be critical or at least ask quedtions about the coaches performance.
The kick chase was indeed good thanks mainly to the bravery and commitment of Baby and McF.

[wixfjord]

You just knew after Madigans first play that he was going to make a MOCkery of the selection policy.

Gopperth played really well.

100% kicking, was our only incisive back in the 1st half and will start the final I'd imagine.

Madigan showed what we all know he can do, make breaks and fcuk sh1t up, but with Gopeprth inside him and the nature of the game, he didn't have to control anything or kick.

[wixfjord]

we won in spite of MOC

Thank Christ he doesn't coach the defence which was the difference between winning and losing.

Actually, you could say MOC got his game plan completely right yesterday. We kept it tight, kicked everything for 60 mins, defended like tigers and then when SOB et al came on, opened up and got across the line.

Of course, that wouldn't go with the usual suspects' confirmation bias, so it won't be mentioned.

[wixfjord]

we won in spite of MOC

For f*ck's sake.

Its pathetic stuff isn't it.

Yup.

[paddyor]

..... couldn't get out of our half with the ball in the first 40.......

We did though. Aside from BODs kick on 34mins we had the ball inside their 5m line twice and turned it over(it's become an annoying feature of playing Ulster). IIRC we got turned over in a maul and our lineout malfunctioned a couple of time.

I was sitting in the south stand, we definitely weren't trapped in our own half for 40mins.

[El Diablo]

The girl who ran on the pitch and hugged Gilroy has been given a development contract, MOC admired her ability to seek contact with the one other player in that half of the field

[ceemec]

We were well in it in terms of territory in the first half. I would suspect we were in their 22 as many times as they were in ours if not more. The difference was, we defended really well in ours and eventually either gave away a penalty or earned one. In theirs, we just turned over possession such as BOD's kick, the knock on after Gopperth's break, Healy knocking on a bad pop from Reddan and the line out where Ulster didn't contest the maul. All visits to Ulster 22 and all cases of possession handed back without Ulster doing anything.

[BRulster]

[that was Johann Muller's last ever game of competitive rugby]

I respected your opinion until the suggestion that Johann Muller has it in him to play a game of UNcompetitive rugby.

[ceemec]

He'll be missed. Always came across very well and has been instrumental in the Ulster resurgence in recent seasons. The likes of Afoa and Pienaar were missing for a good number of big games but Muller was the heartbeat of the team. Franco VDM has big shoes to fill.