I think Toland mentioned it too. Toland can wind me up at times but he does come up with the odd nugget.Dave Cahill wrote:I don't know if has been mentioned here (I can't be arsed wading through a bunch of grown adults arguing about their schools), but a couple of the media pieces have mentioned it and its a good point, about how - especially into the wind when you want to punch the ball lower and harder than usual - Devin Toner attempting to get the blockdown meant that McCarthy had to elevate his kicks to a level where they were subject to the wind. Great tactical play from Leinster and great discipline from Dev to make sure he was in position every time to make an already difficult kick even harder. Poor recognition of this by Munster and they kind of left their scrumhalf swinging in the wind, as it were.
Dev was great but there were loads of other elements too. The weather made it difficult to kick and when you've got the likes of Josh Murphy and Connors getting off the line and dominating collisions then it's impossible to get some territory. I really like Nick (think his all round game is strong) but would be the first to say that he has had a poor start to his Munster career and should have done better on Saturday. The coaches really didn't help him though, they should have had plays ready to go that would give them a few rucks close to the touchline that would make it easier for him and take Dev out of the equation. Pretty basic stuff really.
I also thought Porter was outstanding in defence. He dropped two balls which was pretty poor but they were during those really long passages of play so would cut him some slack. The scrums were a bit of a lottery so I'd let him away with them too and his workrate was really impressive. For one of those dropped balls near the Munster 22 he was able to get across to the far touchline and help stop the counter attack.