It's worth watching the game again to establish what actually went wrong ... so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-x5VVBs9Youtcast eddie wrote:One key factor that occurs to me going into this match with Scarlets is that we are a much better team than 12 months ago. Players like Dan Leavy and James Ryan have blossomed into remarkable players, our stalwarts Sexton, Isa, RK, Ferg etc. are bang in form and we have added Fardy and Lowe. Ugo's podcast concluded this Leinster side would beat England. This is a better Leinster than last season by some distance. Can the same be said about Scarlets?
The biggest problem was our defense: a very bad miss by Adam Byrne on JJVD and some non-event defending from Joey at fullback for the first try, and then JGP [admittedly just on the pitch] failing to fill the hole in defense or make any meaningful contact in two tackle situations. Their third try was fantastic, in fairness.
We had an early try scrubbed for a forward pass [it was forward]; their second try was iffy and Patchell took a quick drop-goal conversion to stop the TMO reviewing. The Scarlets players involved [scrumhalf Davies and blindside Shingler] do everything to make it look like it's not a forward pass – Davies shapes his body and then keeps running when the pass is released and Shingler catches the ball behind him – but the ball travelled forward by two metres and the ref missed it. So it goes.
Breakdown turnovers were an issue, but so were simple knock-ons: Sexton, Triggs, van der Flier and Henshaw all knocked on in open play/no contact within the first ten minutes.
Lastly, Sexton had a very poor game. Scrum.com lists him as the source of 7 turnovers [source: http://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/playerstats ... gue=270557 ] and he had knock-ons, a pass to the ground, a restart which didn't go 10 and a terrible kick straight to the fullback from a good attacking position in the first 25 minutes.
My gameplan would be to do as Joe Schmidt did to Gatland: put his team into the meat-grinder. Run it up the guts - bring Lowe in off the wing, run scrum-half drags with Ryan, Jordi and Leavy, and go for the repeated pick-and goes around the corner. Put Fardy on Tadhg Beirne and tell him simply to be where that blue scrumcap is and smash him every time he gets the chance. Toner, Ryan, Fardy all to start again at Nos 4,5 & 6, with two from Sean O'Brien, Jack Conan and Rhys Ruddock on the bench – whoever is available for selection. Keep on bringing on the heavy cavalry – Big Jack, Porter, O'Brien, Conan/Ruddock – and sew it into them throughout the second half, when our consistent supply of quality players becomes a big factor.
We're the favourites in this one, and we're playing on home turf. We've got to take on those mantles and use them to inexorably take this game away from the Scarlets. Bully them, the way Toulouse bullied us in the 2009-10 semi. Get points on the board from 22 visits, get penalties from set pieces and take their confidence and scrappiness away from them.