Rush defence

[Flash Gordon]

Why is it that we don't seem to be able to play a rush defence system? 3 times this year (Wasps, Glaws and even fockin Edinburgh of all people) we've come up short. Wasps game plan was obvious - everybody knew what was going to happen yet we looked baffled. Instead of kicking over the defence or getting ball out wide fast (the way to play rush) we tried to batter our way down the 10 channel. It was bread and butter Guinness premiership stuff and it played right into Wasps hands. We did exactly the same thing against Glaws.

You've got to look at the coach in this instance and challenge the gameplan. Can't understand it at all.

[StuF]

2 step Whits gave them too much time to rush up over and over again. It was horrible to watch at times.

TBH - I don't think we did that bad up front and our biggest issue was our defence - when that works we get turnovers and score tries.

[harryp]

Agreed, its a serious issue.

Problem 1, 2, 3 & 4 is Whits and his steps. The rest is angles of running. The AB's counter it by having angled runners (more often than not playing technically offside) confusing the defenders. Yesterday, largely IMHO because of Lewis drifting, we had no angled runners. We also need guys coming into a flatter line at pace to make the inital break. That cerainly didn't happen yesterday.

[thecoolfreak]

As someone said yesterday Wasps ignored Lewis! very easy to target Conters and D'Arcy. We should have had people running agaisnt the garin of the rush defence. pretty simple stuff to do.

[Sundy]

Yeah id have to agree harry alot of the problems with our backline yesterday seem to have come from whitaker. Its as simple as the scrumhalf cannot take steps when the opposition is using a rush defence.

[Duff Paddy]

Whitaker and Contepomi. Simply one of the most inept displays you'll ever see by two international halfbacks. The execution, the tactics, the game management, the composure - the works, it was shockingly bad. Don't know if I can face the replay.

[Sundy]

Don't know if I can face the replay.

I think il watch it, cause i couldnt really see that much at the game, really want to have a look and see how Heaslip played. I was singing his praises to a bunch of wasps fans before the game and im not sure he lived up to my big mouth.

[Bogger]

Its hard to know why we did not show up second half but the forward effort wilted considerably, cannot play when we dont have the ball. Contem., Lewis and Whitaker where very poor, granted palying on the back foot did not help but I agree, contemponi is not as effective against rush defence. We really lacked a plan and I thin k we underperformed from the coaching angle also. Sad, but having games two weeks after 6 nations disadvanateges teams in Ireland becasue all our best players are so involved.

[epaddy]

Because our coach and 10 are one trick ponys.

[Oscar]

Its hard to know why we did not show up second half but the forward effort wilted considerably, cannot play when we dont have the ball. Contem., Lewis and Whitaker where very poor, granted palying on the back foot did not help but I agree, contemponi is not as effective against rush defence. We really lacked a plan and I thin k we underperformed from the coaching angle also. Sad, but having games two weeks after 6 nations disadvanateges teams in Ireland becasue all our best players are so involved.

Emm, half of that Wasps pack was playing for England 2 weeks ago, not to mention that Ibanez was playing for France. Leicester just beat Stade Francais today with a team full of 6N players. The HEC doesn't "disadvantage" us in any way.

[Ryan_89]

[quote="epaddy"]Because our coach and 10 are one trick ponys.[/quote]

Are you saying Contepomi is a one-trick pony?

[Duff Paddy]

Because our coach and 10 are one trick ponys.

Felipe is clearly a centre. He is massively talented and completely suited to playing inside centre - he just doesn't have the composure or game management to be a top class outhalf in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I think he's one of the true world great rugby players, but he's no outhalf.

[baggo baggins]

There were a lot of issues yesterday. I thought that the pack played well in the first half and just seemed to hit the wall for those awful 25 minutes after half time. That came through in missed tackles and errors.Could not understand why Hogan went off but in general would not fault the effort but undoubtably problems with execution.

It was hard to tell from the terrace but it seemed that Wasps were always on the border of off side and that cut down on our options. One other thing which struck me as the game went on was we seemed to give away more penalties than them but that has been a feature of our game all year. Does anyone know what the penalty count was?

I am really disappointed but have been before. Still think that we have the makings of a good team. A back 5 in the pack of hogan, cullen, keogh, heaslip and jennings is promising. We need to look at 1 and 3 but Birch does well in the loose and his throwing is ok and can be improved. A lilttle variation and alternative plays for different defensive systems for 9 to 15 would help.

[epaddy]

Because our coach and 10 are one trick ponys.

Felipe is clearly a centre. He is massively talented and completely suited to playing inside centre - he just doesn't have the composure or game management to be a top class outhalf in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I think he's one of the true world great rugby players, but he's no outhalf.

Duff he has all the atributes of a 10 but lacks the mental ability to perform them consistantly, I dont buy the he is not an out half line.

[Leinster Zulu]

O'Driscoll would have eaten the rush defence yesterday imo...

[true blue 06]

without contepomi we would be fairly sh!t so give the guy a break, he's human and didn't have that bad a game but obviously wasn't brilliant, the OH is easy to blame when a team does badly. when the Dr. was injured in december we drew one,won 3 and lost one. it was ordinary straight forward rugby cuz he wasn't there, he is a genius and is far from a one trick pony....FELIPE CONTEPOMI-STRONGEST OUTHALF IN WORLD RUGBY!

[Uncle Mort]

Well whatever it was we couldn't cope with the rush defence and we all knew it was coming. We made a number of mistakes in the match that contributed to the downfall that we saw. Whitaker can not play in any match where the opposition uses the rush defence as he is too slow. This was the main reason for Contepomi having a bad match as he never got the ball in enough space to be effective. As was stated before the bulk of Wasp defensive effort was aimed on this 10 and 12 which stopped the ball getting wide - we didn't outflank Wasps once in the whole match.

But it's more than that too - we should not have played a pick a drive game because we were never going to match Wasps up front for a full 80 minutes. That Heaslip and Gleeson had effective games shows how misdirected the Leinster effort was. Players of the ability that we have should be able to make the space they need in which to play.

But it's more than that too - we are continual failures - ok we get the odd good win but Toulouse is looking more the flash in the pan rather than the launching pad that we hoped it would be. When we have a big game we often fail to show up, we don't leave the pitch thinking ok we were beaten but we gave it our all. We limpy comply with the wishes of the other team and present the match to them neatly wrapped on with a big bow on the ball.

What I want to see is more effort, more guile, more cuteness, more awareness, the ability to change tactics mid match when it's obvious when plan A is not working. I want to see plans B, C, and if needed D and even E.

I was reasonably happy at half time and thought that if we played well in the second half we would probably get the win that playing like that would have earned. But what we saw in the second half is the soft underbelly that still plays a large part in Leinster rugby and one which over the years has never been addressed.

Black Sunday was a horrible day because of what happened to us on our own backyard but I don't think that on my away days with Leinster I've seen such an inpet, gutless and clueless display as they put on the pitch on Saturday. We as supporters deserve more from the team and someone needs to tell them as much.

[Flash Gordon]

Because our coach and 10 are one trick ponys.

Felipe is clearly a centre. He is massively talented and completely suited to playing inside centre - he just doesn't have the composure or game management to be a top class outhalf in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I think he's one of the true world great rugby players, but he's no outhalf.

Duff he has all the atributes of a 10 but lacks the mental ability to perform them consistantly, I dont buy the he is not an out half line.

Maybe you're right guys. I have to say that if Holwell had been playing 10, Phil at 12 and Flash at 13 it'd have been a different game in my view. Against both Glaws and Wasps we've played to a Guinness premiership game plan of smashing down the 10/12 channel. They're bigger and better at it than we are.

The issue of Whittaker has to be looked at too. Our backline needs fast ball. With the pack we have thats not always going to come but when any ball we do get is slowed further at 9 its a real issue. Reddan was a class above him on Saturday.

[claire_m]

I think we had the wrong game plan as well. Wasps have a rush defence system, they have done all season. It wasn't something that we shouldn't have expected.

Why didn't we put Cipriani under any kind of pressure? The kid was playing in the biggest game of his young life, yet he was never targetted. It seemed to me that Leinster were trying to play too much rugby. Why must we always run the ball from our 22? Why can't we kick it?

That game was a big kick in the teeth for me, but the worst thing was that we went down without a fight. Maybe the 6 nations took more out of the players mentally than we realised.

We do still have something to play for, and I'm glad that we have a game this weekend, as the players need to get back on the park, and play rugby again.

[thecoolfreak]

As much as it pains me to say it i think if we had an out half like ROG on Saturday it would have been a much closer game. We tried to run it out of defence too many times and there were plenty of times when it looked like we should have just kicked to the corners and make Wasps do the work. As claire has siad Cipriani got an easy ride. And the few times we did kick we missed touch giving up scores as a result