Leinster v Salarysins

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Valiant effort in the second half and we were unlucky not to be closer. Saracens got every call and should have seen a couple of cards.

But it’s a deserved result for that first half. Brilliant from Saracens, they are seriously tough and well organised and were brutal in going after our weaknesses at the scrum and in the air.

[Peg Leg]

Unfortunately scrum has killed us.....we have done well to even get as close as we did.....

Ah, we gave away to many pens in the first half. Although why Porter gets pinged at the back of a ruck clearly not affecting the ball but Itoje does not 4 mins to go.
Sarries did not have much to do to get those 15 points.

[fourthirtythree]

Tight five were dominant for them. Well beaten, better team.

[domhnallj]

We beat ourselves today. McBride has his work cut out.

[RavenhillRaider]

Rotten to watch them come back and not clinch it. But as others said we were man handled and gave alot of soft penalties.

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[LeRouxIsPHat]

Unfortunately scrum has killed us.....we have done well to even get as close as we did.....

Ah, we gave away to many pens in the first half. Although why Porter gets pinged at the back of a ruck clearly not affecting the ball but Itoje does not 4 mins to go.
Sarries did not have much to do to get those 15 points.

Sarries got away with that all game.

[wixfjord]

Biggest selection error was not starting JGP. Not sure it would've changed things totally, but that wasn't the selection call that rewarded form and it showed.

Overall though, all our chat about how 'brilliant' we were beating Munster and Ulster was for nought. Sarries were good enough to actually take advantage of the areas we were weak.

Sarries are the better side, definitively now.

[fourthirtythree]

Unfortunately scrum has killed us.....we have done well to even get as close as we did.....

Ah, we gave away to many pens in the first half. Although why Porter gets pinged at the back of a ruck clearly not affecting the ball but Itoje does not 4 mins to go.
Sarries did not have much to do to get those 15 points.

To be fair, Itoje ended up on the wrong side of every ruck but the ref gave up after doing one apiece whether it effected or not. That's fairly normal.

[domhnallj]

Interesting to see if that pack has it in their legs next week.

[Logorrhea]

Better team won. Good luck to them.

[OTT]

How many times were Saracens in our 22, I think just the try?
I think we will be disgusted because they didn’t have to do anything to clever just front up and live off our mistakes.

Devastated but silver lining was Ryan Baird and James Ryan, I thought they were both immense and they are both so young.

[Blueberry]

Poor season ultimately. Yes Covid hasn't helped and a huge crowd at the Aviva may have helped but ultimately the Pro 14 is a weak league we would win with half a first team.....and to step up to the very best in Europe is a big step and yes we are good enough but we need more quality games to really challenge these teams.....Saracens and Toulon and Clermont have show us the problem over the years.

Not sure how to fix it to be honest.

[fourthirtythree]

How many times were Saracens in our 22, I think just the try?
I think we will be disgusted because they didn’t have to do anything to clever just front up and live off our mistakes.

Devastated but silver lining was Ryan Baird and James Ryan, I thought they were both immense and they are both so young.

Yeah. Baird deserved his selection ahead of Fardy.

[blaker]

No debate on that. They play their game, whether you like it or not it wins. They didn’t do anything today that we wouldn’t have seen coming but no complaints.

7 scrum penalties renders most of the rest of the discussion moot frankly.
Luke was poor enough regardless of JGP comparison who played in a v diff environment.
We didn’t deal with their kicking particularly well but it was the secondary aspect that hurt.
Conan was quiet enough.
Lookit, 7 scrum penalties - whatchagonnado

[wixfjord]

This is a Munster '09 style defeat.

Total hubris and ego coming in after beating inferior sides, but getting the stuffing knocked out by a very capable underdog.

We were hoodwinked.

[OTT]

Poor season ultimately. Yes Covid hasn't helped and a huge crowd at the Aviva may have helped but ultimately the Pro 14 is a weak league we would win with half a first team.....and to step up to the very best in Europe is a big step and yes we are good enough but we need more quality games to really challenge these teams.....Saracens and Toulon and Clermont have show us the problem over the years.

Not sure how to fix it to be honest.

Ah if the rule is you can’t lose then why bother following a team. Someone wins, someone loses, You go back and learn from it and get better, that’s sport

[blaker]

Poor season ultimately. Yes Covid hasn't helped and a huge crowd at the Aviva may have helped but ultimately the Pro 14 is a weak league we would win with half a first team.....and to step up to the very best in Europe is a big step and yes we are good enough but we need more quality games to really challenge these teams.....Saracens and Toulon and Clermont have show us the problem over the years.

Not sure how to fix it to be honest.

Yes this is now a genuine problem I think. We get away with 4-6/10 displays in many games in P14.

[Blueberry]

Suspect you could spend some time looking through dusty rugby books to find a game where you ship 7 scrum penalties and win....

[curates_egg]

For me, two mistakes cost us that game:
- a mistake by the coaches in selecting McGrath; and
- a mistake by the captain to turn down a very kickable penalty at 15-3, which was turned around into Sarries’ try.

Horrible feeling losing to a weakened Saracens side. Horrible.

[Theleinsterlad]

This is gut wrenching, take a while to get over this one especially when we played our game in 2nd half and would have won this game if we had played it in the 1st. Big mistake not playing Kelleher and JGP from the start. Porter is amazing in the open but I think at the highest level is not good enough technique wise to be our right head. If he was still loose head he would be talked about as the best loosehead in world rugby. McGrath for me is just too slow and not intelligent enough to see things during tight games.

Baird superb when he came on