Lar wrote: ↑September 21st, 2020, 5:00 pm
MylesNaGapoleen wrote: ↑September 21st, 2020, 12:47 pm
Leinster Lout wrote: ↑September 21st, 2020, 11:27 am
Could someone please briefly explain the change in the laws or change in its interpretation re the breakdown?
I don't think it is a law change, rather stricter implementation of what happens around the jackal...e.g. tackler not rolling away quick enough, is more strictly refereed now and the player coming into make a jackal having their hands on the ground before or when picking out the ball. ditto for players coming in from the side.
Some refs apply those interpretations differently...Itoje, on saturday, had a penalty awarded in his favour when I thought he was coming in from the side (not behind the rear-most player).....
when he picked off healy, in the second half. not long after larmour scored.
I didn't think he came in from the side but that was a really crucial moment. I had one or two thoughts about it.
(1) Itoje was just smart. He saw the way Healy was falling - away from the ruck/tackle area and just waited for him to hit the ground - hands on the ball - and there was no Leinster player immediately there. The penalty was whistled extremely quickly but that is the new rule. Credit Itoje who is a smart player.
(2) Sarries were trying to rip the ball from Healy, they were told by the ref to release and did so. Healy fell to one side and Itoje was there and the rest as above. It struck me as unfair though that the defending side was told to release and were allowed to do so. Healy was given no such instruction with the ball on the ground. Straight away a penalty and Sarries kick under no pressure and have the line-out. Give Healy the instruction - ok Sarries may turn it over but if Itoje re-cycles they are likely to kick for touch and we have a line-out in their half. I accept also they could have recycled for a phase or two and box kicked. Now we are in the realms of speculation but at least they were kicking it to us.
IMO, the infringement here was against Maku Vunipola. In precisely the same circumstances, the referee had penalised Sexton in the opening minutes, WITHOUT ANY WARNING, and given Saracens a penalty in front of the posts.
Healy was tackled, i.e. knee on the grounds and Vunipola on his feet continued for 5 secs to wrestle the ball from Healy before the ref says "release" Healy then drags the ball back and places in within the ruck, whence Itoje arriving from the 'side / hindmost foot' put one hand on the ground before getting two hands on top of the ball whilst resisting the Leinster clear-out.
If Gauzere was applying the Law interpretation consistently, that was penalty Leinster in front of Sarries posts. That wasn't his only bad, and wrong decision in the second half, but the timing was crucial to the outcome.
Few in Clonskeagh will have enjoyed the review of Saturday's game. But there were some good performances. Keenan did many good things and should be our designated full-back for the foreseeable future. Kelleher was a warrior in tackling and carrying and his throwing must remain a work in progress. Conan and Doris tackled, cleared out and carried as well as any forward on the field. JVdF gave an excellent cameo which showed he is an international No 7. JGP showed why he should have started and the importance of the quality of his distribution should never be underestimated.
Some of the coaching staff will also have had cringe moments. Yes, there were moments when our scrum appeared to disintegrate. Flankers heads came up, their weight came off their props' arse and Sarries front-row were totally in charge. It didn't happen every scrum but it did happen more than enough to cause us serious grief.
However, if we got a lesson in the scrum, it was in the maul that we were totally schooled. Sarries own maul walked us backwards beyond 10 metres at least three times in the second half. On our maul, within Sarries 22m area, they dismantled our forward pack clincally on at least 7 occasions so that despite positional opportunity, only once could we engineer a score. Ironically, Larmour's superbly conceived try was scored from what was effectively a dummy maul where we brought the ball down and set up the maul structure to commit the Sarries back-row to their defensive duties, but then moved it rapidly wide to enable Larmour have a clear passage to the line.
The maul, the maul, the maul. An assumed strength which was targeted, with huge efficency, as a weakness. McCall and his Coaches did not target our line-out. They did target our scrum, mostly our front-five and our maul, involving everyone of our forwards. In this phase of the game, Saracens snuffed out Leinster's chances to beat them.
They ambushed our maul and an inconsistent referee squashed any chance we might have stolen the game in the final 15 minutes.
Well done Sarries on your win. It will be a good contest in Paris, but Racing 92 will probably have learned enough to make it a harder game than we were able to give you. I expect to see a different name on the European Cup for 2020
