Cardiff v Leinster Sat 19.35 TG4

[neiliog93]

Leavy is just getting better and better. I would've seen him as a pure 7 for pro rugby prior to this season and that was looking like it could be a bit of an issue in terms of game time, but he is be becoming a teak tough blindside. His hands too for the pass which led to the winning penalty....superb. Sexton did torture the attempted intercepting defence with that pass. Teased em, taunted em, was singin to em out of key. Me may my mo, me mo my may.

Such a good gritty victory.

6'3", 101kg too small for a top level blindside, unless you do a Gatty and pick two blindsides in the back row (Warburton + Tipuric together, 99kg and 103kg respectively).

[Peg Leg]

Reid on Nick Williams! Get that man a Lions jersey!

At this rate of improvement he'll have a job as defence coach when he retires.


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Lmfao

[Fan with smartphone]

That's the combo that cut England to pieces in cardiff a few years ago and I'd argue it's Wales' best. Don't think they'd be first choice, but (especially on these 4g pitches) there is a fair bit to like. I understand where you are coming from though-I felt the same way at the start of the season, but the evidence on the pitch would suggest he is a much better 6 than I anticipated.

[Ruckedtobits]

Can't figure how anybody can class Leavy as a blind side flanker. We are playing two opensides, JVdF and Leavy, as left and right flankers just as the Aussies did in the world Cup. Playing each side of Heaslip against Castres, I believe they will give us our best chance of starting Europe with a win.

Munster game will come and go and be decided by Ref and appetite of both teams on the day. For our season to have a real objective through to next May, we need a win against Castres and at least a LBP against Montpelier. It starts now.

[Fan with smartphone]

Maybe being a wee bit picky, but Pocock played 8 at the world cup, so I'd consider that different to what is going on here. I do think Leavy is covering more of what would be considered blindside duties. At least that's kind of how I'm seeing it. I thought the balance would be off, I remember Waugh and smith doing something similar for Australia and I never liked it, but these two work well together and have changed my mind. Leavy is doing a fine job.

[Oldschool]

Scrums - I'd be interested to hear from the experts.
In my opinion, Rees (spelling?) broke his bind on more than one occasion pushing up abd out on Bent.
The ref should have done something about this.
Fair play to Leo and the squad they managed to bin the sleeping pills.
I'dhave been happy with a lbp.
At 13-13 a draw was even looking possible.
A win, take your hats off.

[Cianostays]

Not sure that we were as lucky with the reffing decisions as some are saying here but having a ref from the Leinster branch reffing the game was patently ridiculous. It's asking for trouble. This is compounded by playing Cardiff who must be the whiniest crowd in the Pro12. I know every crowd appeals for a lot of non decisions (including ourselves) but they appeal for everything. I'm surprised they didn't complain about the numerous handball incidents we got away with

That's a huge result for us in terms of the league though. Very good news for us that Reid and O'Loughlin look like a good Pro12 standard centre partnership. Like everybody else I'm both surprised and delighted with how Reid has stepped up defensively. Roll on Munster.

[artaneboy]

Maybe being a wee bit picky, but Pocock played 8 at the world cup, so I'd consider that different to what is going on here. I do think Leavy is covering more of what would be considered blindside duties. At least that's kind of how I'm seeing it. I thought the balance would be off, I remember Waugh and smith doing something similar for Australia and I never liked it, but these two work well together and have changed my mind. Leavy is doing a fine job.

Waugh and Smith is the correct comparison- and they were unarguably great. Not necessarily saying that we should pick Leavy and VdeF for big games- but it's a definite "horses for courses" option. We probably won't win a big bruiser arm wrestle with the top English and French clubs, so maybe try and outflank them- literally...


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[Ruckedtobits]

The aspects of the game that JVdF and Leavy bring are a) genuine world class tackling on both sides and b) the ability to carry and break the line by their combination of strength (leg) and speed.

JVdF has a superb hand-off and Dan Leavy shows great dexterity in how he moves the ball from hand to hand and off-loads. Both are intelligent footballers who are learning how to win more turnovers at breakdown time. IMO, its worth the gamble for European home games to play them together.

[Gearzbox2]

Very good performance....no panic when we went 10 down and the D effort for the last 10 was exceptional
That type of game was one we'd have lost last year
Few lads really impressed
Noel Maggs!!! was a revelation along with Rory O Loughlin
JVDF and Leavy looked slick
Halfbacks were good

Few negatives
Scrum went to pot a bit, Cronin got popped for one ( Rees seemed to standing up illegally) and Benty got mullered
Dev and Nagle not the most powerful scrum pairing
Too many stripped/dropped balls in critical areas

On to the Aviva!!!!!

[wwed]

Is it just me or has the whole idea of assistant tackler also having to release gone out the window. It seems that double teaming now pays big time. First man hits low second hits high and can stay engaged to jackel winning the penalty.

Agree totally - certainly in yesterday's match. Cardiff didn't get many penalties for holding on (although one they got was clear case of no release by their tighthead) but they were able to slow down our ball all the time by second tackler lying all over it. We improved in second half by committing more men to the breakdown.

[simonokeeffe]

Did Bent have any scrums v Jenkins (or one where we killed them) or were they all on Gill who tbf played enough times for saracens to be taken seriously at this level?

With that one tackle on the line Carberry has to be ahead of Kirchner for fullback cover now, LRIP is right about that risible effort on James

JGP was trying to milk penalties all day (boss was great for that too) but he had to as for first 50 mins Cardiff fatties all flopped on wrong side and never rolled

ROL impressed me as did Leavy's carrying

[hugonaut]

Not sure that we were as lucky with the reffing decisions as some are saying here but having a ref from the Leinster branch reffing the game was patently ridiculous. It's asking for trouble. This is compounded by playing Cardiff who must be the whiniest crowd in the Pro12. I know every crowd appeals for a lot of non decisions (including ourselves) but they appeal for everything. I'm surprised they didn't complain about the numerous handball incidents we got away with

That's a huge result for us in terms of the league though. Very good news for us that Reid and O'Loughlin look like a good Pro12 standard centre partnership. Like everybody else I'm both surprised and delighted with how Reid has stepped up defensively. Roll on Munster.

Thought we were quite lucky with the referee alright. I can't remember a game in the last three or four seasons where I thought we got as many of the 50-50 [and even the 40-60] decisions in our favour.

My honest opinion is that we suffer unduly under a couple of the the Munster Branch refs [guess who?], who carry their provincial prejudices on to the pitch and frequently ref one side with great astringency than the opposition ... so getting the rub of the green once in very long while doesn't keep me up at nights.

With that said, we were on the dud side of some bizarre refereeing decisions the other week – Leavy getting sin-binned for a legit tackle, Ringrose getting penalised for blocking down a kick – so it's a classic case of swings and roundabouts.

[artaneboy]

Not sure that we were as lucky with the reffing decisions as some are saying here but having a ref from the Leinster branch reffing the game was patently ridiculous. It's asking for trouble. This is compounded by playing Cardiff who must be the whiniest crowd in the Pro12. I know every crowd appeals for a lot of non decisions (including ourselves) but they appeal for everything. I'm surprised they didn't complain about the numerous handball incidents we got away with

That's a huge result for us in terms of the league though. Very good news for us that Reid and O'Loughlin look like a good Pro12 standard centre partnership. Like everybody else I'm both surprised and delighted with how Reid has stepped up defensively. Roll on Munster.

Thought we were quite lucky with the referee alright. I can't remember a game in the last three or four seasons where I thought we got as many of the 50-50 [and even the 40-60] decisions in our favour.

My honest opinion is that we suffer unduly under a couple of the the Munster Branch refs [guess who?], who carry their provincial prejudices on to the pitch and frequently ref one side with great astringency than the opposition ... so getting the rub of the green once in very long while doesn't keep me up at nights.

With that said, we were on the dud side of some bizarre refereeing decisions the other week – Leavy getting sin-binned for a legit tackle, Ringrose getting penalised for blocking down a kick – so it's a classic case of swings and roundabouts.

I'm as quick to complain about refs as any fan, but on viewing the recording get I thought that Dudley had a good game. He was consistent in the big calls. But contrary to what done saw I suggest rather than been favoured by him in the scrum decisions after the second half changes, he (and his (ARs) let the Cardiff front row away with a whole pile of illegality- standing up, not binding, pushing early, burrowing in- the lot. A typically one eyed Welsh crowd didn't like him not allowing us to play rugby at all, but that's no measure of him favouring us.


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[simonokeeffe]

Viewing the rebirth?

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Viewing the rebirth?

Well Noel does seem to be the second coming now.

[hugonaut]

Thought Nagle had a very reasonable outing on debut, which I was happy to see. Have always seen the potential to be a good player in him, both when he was being over-rated at the start of his Munster stint and under-rated at the end of it.

I think he's a decent straight swap at Pro12 level for Devin, which is a good fit for the squad. Devin is now a central figure in the international team; with that status goes less access for Leinster, especially in the November and February-March windows.

More and more, I'm becoming convinced by the 'next man down the depth chart' method of selection, especially in club rugby. Instead of moving people out of position to get your best players on the pitch, if you've got an injury you simply promote the next player in the same position. For example, if Dev is unavailable, you pick Nagle or Molony on the left hand side of the scrummaging partnership, rather than moving Mick Kearney across from the tighthead side.

I think it makes for less disruption in the team's performance, and also provides for more opportunities for building a stronger and more unified squad: if you're the next man up in a certain position, you'll get the nod when the chap ahead of you is injured, not the hump when somebody else is moved out of position to play ahead of you.

Thinking back to the disastrous selection opening European match of last season against Wasps, we had four players playing in positions other than their preferred ones – Madser at fullback, Zane on the wing, Ferg at No13 and Jordi at blindside. It was a complete camel of a performance.

[hugonaut]

Very good performance....no panic when we went 10 down and the D effort for the last 10 was exceptional
That type of game was one we'd have lost last year
Few lads really impressed
Noel Maggs!!! was a revelation along with Rory O Loughlin

Insert 'Porno Maggs/Reider's Wives' comment here.

[wixfjord]

Thought Nagle had a very reasonable outing on debut, which I was happy to see. Have always seen the potential to be a good player in him, both when he was being over-rated at the start of his Munster stint and under-rated at the end of it.

I think he's a decent straight swap at Pro12 level for Devin, which is a good fit for the squad. Devin is now a central figure in the international team; with that status goes less access for Leinster, especially in the November and February-March windows.

More and more, I'm becoming convinced by the 'next man down the depth chart' method of selection, especially in club rugby. Instead of moving people out of position to get your best players on the pitch, if you've got an injury you simply promote the next player in the same position. For example, if Dev is unavailable, you pick Nagle or Molony on the left hand side of the scrummaging partnership, rather than moving Mick Kearney across from the tighthead side.

I think it makes for less disruption in the team's performance, and also provides for more opportunities for building a stronger and more unified squad: if you're the next man up in a certain position, you'll get the nod when the chap ahead of you is injured, not the hump when somebody else is moved out of position to play ahead of you.

Thinking back to the disastrous selection opening European match of last season against Wasps, we had four players playing in positions other than their preferred ones – Madser at fullback, Zane on the wing, Ferg at No13 and Jordi at blindside. It was a complete camel of a performance.

Good point, someone else said that before the game, and it turned out to be prescient. He was excellent in the lineouts last night, rucked well and carried well too. Definitely the better of our two starting second rows.

[curates_egg]

Cardiff definitely got away with murder in the scrum (apart from at the very end) but we definitely seemed to get more than our fair share of the other 50:50 calls. That said: they should have someone in the bin long before Navidi for lingering offside and disrupting play and, in that same play, Sexton was tackled off the ball one man out; also, Nick Williams was back to being a dirty big cheat and his flying shoulder lunge at a ruck at the end of the first half was at least a yellow offence, and I think it could have been a red...will be interesting to see if he is cited. The crowd in Cardiff was just pantomime stuff.

Like others, I was hugely impressed with out flankers. They were both excellent last season and it is great they are continuing where they left off.
Would agree with Hugo that Nagle had a very decent first outing.

It was my first time seeing Gibson-Park and he looks like a great signing: good pass; good decision-making and choice of where the play should go; very good box-kicking off both feet...all that while looking like he was playing well within himself creatively. He has to be the front-runner to start for the European games?

The scratch backline played like it. Some good individual performances.
Reid has come of age and, if he can keep that level up (defence, he has always been one of our most creative players), it will be interesting to see how our first choice backline looks.
Dave had a good game until he came off: what was wrong with him?

All told, a great result and a great exercise for the squad.