Dragons V Leinster Pro12 2015/16

[Donny B.]

He's two seasons here and he still carries the ball high into contact.

Yeah, it's something I've noticed too. Between that and the knock-ons he's loses us quite a lot of ball.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Don't think we were that bad! Thought a draw would have been fair.

I dunno, they converted chances better when they were on top in the first half and we were fortunate not to concede another couple of tries. A losing BP was there but for the stupidity of Ferg and Kirchner.

Molony was our best player. Triggs put in a decent shift too considering he isn't fully fit and Bent did a decent job holding up the scrum for the most part. Stupid card from Leavy but played better in the second half.

On the negative side, we still blew too many chances in the second half, our maul and maul defence is diabolical and has been since Leo has had responsibility for it. Ferg had a nightmare and could face another ban. Kichner was poor and Jordi was anonymous yet again.

In fairness, you can't complain about Mitrea so much and not factor him in to the result! Thought he was worth a lot of points to them and he should have penalised them harder when we were camped in their 22 in the second half.

We made a lot of mistakes and were lucky not to concede more in the first half but overall I didn't think we were awful. Not saying we were good, it was a serious mixed bag, but I'm not annoyed after it.

[wprathead]

It's why the league is so sh!t. Playing without 30+ players and losing against sh!t teams is the biggest hinderence - not just for us, but any of the big teams.

All the massive derbies and great games are completely cancelled out when it's games like this that decide the league - your 4th string team on a football pitch.

Throwing toys out pram a bit COYBIG?

Leinster were well capable of winning of this - they blew it themselves

[Angelsea Angst]

Very disappointing result. The two yellow cards (both justified) cost us dearly. The Pro12 league is, however, very odd with three teams (Leinster, Glasgow and Ospreys) contributing a disproportionate number of players to their national sides and consequently suffering badly when international games are taking place. Despite today's result we should still , however, make the top four.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I'm loathe to single a younger player out in a negative way, but Jordi made a huge mistake tapping and going wen we had a pen from a scrum early in the second half. We were on top in the scrum and we should have stuck with it

That was very strange. It seemed to be a reflex to someone throwing him the ball.

Don't see why Jordi is being criticised so much though, thought he was decent.

[Dave Cahill]

Don't see why Jordi is being criticised so much though, thought he was decent.

No, I'd agree that he was okay, or at least no worse than the rest, its just that one incident that struck me as being very poor play

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Don't see why Jordi is being criticised so much though, thought he was decent.

No, I'd agree that he was okay, or at least no worse than the rest, its just that one incident that struck me as being very poor play

Sorry that wasn't actually aimed at you, I know you were only referring to that.

[Donny B.]

In fairness, you can't complain about Mitrea so much and not factor him in to the result! Thought he was worth a lot of points to them and he should have penalised them harder when we were camped in their 22 in the second half.

We made a lot of mistakes and were lucky not to concede more in the first half but overall I didn't think we were awful. Not saying we were good, it was a serious mixed bag, but I'm not annoyed after it.

In fairness we've been the beneficiaries of Mitrea's windyness at the RDS ourselves so it's swings and roundabouts.

[fourthirtythree]

Thought our maul defence actually worked.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Speaking of the maul, it was definitely idiotic to throw Te'o and Adam Byrne into an attacking maul near their line, that was one thing that did annoy me greatly.

[Dave Cahill]

Speaking of the maul, it was definitely idiotic to throw Te'o and Adam Byrne into an attacking maul near their line, that was one thing that did annoy me greatly.

We've been doing it a lot this season. I think we know that our maul is rather poor and we're attempting to overcome the technical shortcomings with beef

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Yeah I've noticed and I don't particularly mind throwing some backs in, but not a league convert who's here short term or a winger who's only been playing for about 5 years. I would honestly throw Luke McGrath into it before those guys.

EDIT: actually I don't really like it.

[Donny B.]

Speaking of the maul, it was definitely idiotic to throw Te'o and Adam Byrne into an attacking maul near their line, that was one thing that did annoy me greatly.

I forget the game but they tried that earlier in the season too and it didn't work that time either.
I think the whole "send the backs in" thing is a sign of desperation.
The last time we won the league our maul was a big weapon responsible for plenty of tries and penalty tries.
But since Gibbes left it's gone seriously downhill.

[Peg Leg]

I'll take the losing BP at this stage.

It's why the league is so sh!t. Playing without 30+ players and losing against sh!t teams is the biggest hinderence - not just for us, but any of the big teams.

All the massive derbies and great games are completely cancelled out when it's games like this that decide the league - your 4th string team on a football pitch.

This is my favourite time of the league.

[nc6000]

I would have been delighted with a point which we would have been lucky to get after the Dragons messed up scoring tries so many times. Kirchner and Reid running the ball back like that was crazy, we were 7 points down with only a couple of mins left so at best we could have got a draw. We threw away a point by trying to get another point.

Looking at the table and a losing bonus point would have put us top of the table.

[Keith]

The worrying thing for me is; no matter what team we put out we can't convert opportunities in the redzone into tries. Our play is usually pretty good from far out from the line but when we get 5-10 meters out we slow the phases down for some reason and don't really know what to do.

Also ZK is still useless.

[desperado]

The worrying thing for me is; no matter what team we put out we can't convert opportunities in the redzone into tries. Our play is usually pretty good from far out from the line but when we get 5-10 meters out we slow down the phases down for some reason and don't really know what to do.

Also ZK is still useless.

never mind even converting them into tries; especially on a night like that just keep the scoreboard ticking. The decision making was piss poor. Take your points at 17-13 for instance; make it a 1 point game. Many other instances of poor option taking/poor discipline.

[domhnallj]

Dreadful rubbish

[ribs]

The worrying thing for me is; no matter what team we put out we can't convert opportunities in the redzone into tries. Our play is usually pretty good from far out from the line but when we get 5-10 meters out we slow down the phases down for some reason and don't really know what to do.

I remember this being a serious problem for us just before we started winning European Cups too. We were losing games despite 10 phases 1 yard out. Just couldn't get over the line. I think some well known signings in the forwards and a bit of plan sorted it out.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I don't disagree that we need to work on our attack in the 22, but the conditions were awful, we were missing nearly two team's worth of players, and the Dragons were offside and cynically killing our ball all night long, so I wouldn't be overly worried after tonight.

One thing we were much better at in the second half was getting the right guys taking short balls and running at the inside defenders/space around the ruck. Strauss, Leavy, Jordi, Te'o and Ferg were all doing much better at it. Although Ferg was a bit 50-50 in that regard but he did have better carries after I'd mentioned that he was having a nightmare. In the first half Tracy and Jordi were good at it but Dooley and Dippy in particular got the ball far too many times when they either went sideways or were just too soft in contact and killed our momentum and turned over the ball. I was surprised Ringrose was quiet in that regard actually. Usually he goes hunting the ball and will pick and go or truck it up when we're crying out for it, didn't really happen though.

The one really poor bit of attacking play that stood out to me was when Adam Byrne dropped the ball near the touchline. Zane should have given the ball sooner but ran too close to the defender, Leavy had overrun him, and Byrne should still have caught it and been away. Dreadful from every single one, and reminiscent of the chance that Ben and Zane blew recently when Ben tried to flick an offload away but Zane had overrun him. Basic mistakes that need to be cut out.

The one massive positive was Molony. He was immense and was the only young player who really backed up his performance from the Bath game IMO. Love the way you could hear him roaring at players throughout the game too. Actually thought Luke McGrath was mostly very good too. Had one kick on the full, was turned over when he tried to make a break off slow ball on their 22, and made a hash of the kick in behind, but other than that I thought he was really good. Not that you can write off three mistakes, but for his passing to be so good in the conditions was impressive, scored a great try, defended superbly, and had some nice kicks as well. He's very good at getting runners going off him, needed to see more of that in the first half. Himself and Leavy combined very well for it in the second half.