Leinster vs Castres Sat Oct 15th @ 15:15

[simonokeeffe]

Champions league games on ITV getting 22 times the viewing figures than on BT, 4.4m v 200k

BT lose champions league on UEFA orders (sponsors unhappy) then thats another serious blow to (the viability of) BT Sport

[dropkick]

Interesting, cheers for that. And both Tracey and Moloney have demonstrated decent hands in the past. Ross....not so much.

Moloney passed twice from 4 possessions and Furlong passed once from 2 possessions so those players passed 50% of the time. They're 2 of the younger brigade. Furlong does pass a lot for a prop and Toner does also.

+1 Very relevant analysis and one which I hope has been noted and are planning how to fix it. However, it may also be relevant that all iof the teams you name-checked above have speed on their wings

Its not just speed on the wings though. Its more about moving the ball at speed and keeping it alive and in motion. To do that the forwards have to start passing more. If there are 5 forwards who are going to run with the ball 90% of the time, the opposition will know whats coming and can prepare for the carry. That makes it easier to defend.
For the 42 times the Leinster 5 (starting plus subs) carried, they only made 53m between them. Thats a lot of huff and puff for that amount of meters.


If they can start passing and offloading more it would stretch defences more and result in more tries. Saracens are doing it well this season and its really helped them step up a level in an attacking sense. Some of their backs are not the fastest either. In fairness though I have seen Leinster do that more often this season so they're on the right track but need to break some old habits.

[molloyjh]

So I often review games for the auld blog and on my more detailed review of this game I paid closer attention to McGrath given some of the things written about him here. I focused mainly on his passing, but also the other parts of his game.

In terms of his passing I broke them down into 3 groups. Good passes are those that were of good quality in terms of accuracy, placement and decision making. Poor passes were passes that made life a bit more difficult on the intended recipient (checking runs etc). Bad passes were passes that you wouldn't expect the receiver to take, e.g. the bootlace types. This is what I found:

Good Passes: 45 (76%)
Poor Passes: 10 (17%)
Bad Passes: 4 (7%)

2 of the bad passes were bootlace passes. The other 2 were as the result of bad decisions - 1 a hospital pass to Rob and the other a poor decision to go flat to Carbery off a scrum against the head when he should have gone himself. The 10 poor passes were those that players had to readjust for to take, but they were still good enough to work with. So while only 76% of his passes were good, 93% were serviceable. Then we also have to factor in the conditions (including a 15 minute downpour when the 2 bootlaces passes were thrown).

His kicking was generally of a high standard although there was 1 very poor kick in the first half that only went about 10m and put us under a bit of pressure. His yellow card and PT, with the ref right beside him, was a really needless offence. Defensively he wasn't called on a lot so there was nothing to really report there.

Having watched it live, rewatched it casually and now rewatched it again in detail I can really see no logic for calling McGraths game a horror show or shocking or even awful. It wasn't a great performance. But given the conditions he wasn't that bad at all. Yet some people seem to have their minds made up about the guy already and the smallest amount of evidence can drown out everything else. I think there's an enormous amount of confirmation bias at play here. This was his worst performance of the season and it was still nowhere near as bad as some would have us believe. He sure as hell didn't have a net negative impact.

In fact the biggest issue we had in the game was our ball protection at the breakdown, and guys like Jack McGrath and Mike Ross were guilty of not effectively clearing out players. The number of times we turned ball over in attacking positions was frustrating. We had another 2 tries in us easily if we were better there.

[riocard911]

So I often review games for the auld blog and on my more detailed review of this game I paid closer attention to McGrath given some of the things written about him here. I focused mainly on his passing, but also the other parts of his game.

In terms of his passing I broke them down into 3 groups. Good passes are those that were of good quality in terms of accuracy, placement and decision making. Poor passes were passes that made life a bit more difficult on the intended recipient (checking runs etc). Bad passes were passes that you wouldn't expect the receiver to take, e.g. the bootlace types. This is what I found:

Good Passes: 45 (76%)
Poor Passes: 10 (17%)
Bad Passes: 4 (7%)

2 of the bad passes were bootlace passes. The other 2 were as the result of bad decisions - 1 a hospital pass to Rob and the other a poor decision to go flat to Carbery off a scrum against the head when he should have gone himself. The 10 poor passes were those that players had to readjust for to take, but they were still good enough to work with. So while only 76% of his passes were good, 93% were serviceable. Then we also have to factor in the conditions (including a 15 minute downpour when the 2 bootlaces passes were thrown).

His kicking was generally of a high standard although there was 1 very poor kick in the first half that only went about 10m and put us under a bit of pressure. His yellow card and PT, with the ref right beside him, was a really needless offence. Defensively he wasn't called on a lot so there was nothing to really report there.

Having watched it live, rewatched it casually and now rewatched it again in detail I can really see no logic for calling McGraths game a horror show or shocking or even awful. It wasn't a great performance. But given the conditions he wasn't that bad at all. Yet some people seem to have their minds made up about the guy already and the smallest amount of evidence can drown out everything else. I think there's an enormous amount of confirmation bias at play here. This was his worst performance of the season and it was still nowhere near as bad as some would have us believe. He sure as hell didn't have a net negative impact.

In fact the biggest issue we had in the game was our ball protection at the breakdown, and guys like Jack McGrath and Mike Ross were guilty of not effectively clearing out players. The number of times we turned ball over in attacking positions was frustrating. We had another 2 tries in us easily if we were better there.

That concurs with my assessment of Luke's performance. I too initially was quite critical of him. It was only later after watching the match a second time with particular attention to his contribution, that I came to the conclusion, I had done him an injustice.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I've often mentioned confirmation bias, been aghast at how people have reviewed Luke's performances and defended him far more than I should have purely because I think he gets a raw deal...so I'm not one of those people and yet was probably the most critical of him after last Saturday.

I'm not really sure how those stats defend him. You've just said that 1 in 4 of his passes were poor, that he had one poor kick, and gave away a penalty try and a yellow card...all in 50 minutes of rugby. That's ignoring the really poor dropped ball (conditions are no excuse there,my is body position was awful and the ball should have gone backwards) and that IMO he kicked at times when we should have run the ball.

I don't see that post as a defence of him, I see it as evidence that he was awful.

[wixfjord]

So I often review games for the auld blog and on my more detailed review of this game I paid closer attention to McGrath given some of the things written about him here. I focused mainly on his passing, but also the other parts of his game.

In terms of his passing I broke them down into 3 groups. Good passes are those that were of good quality in terms of accuracy, placement and decision making. Poor passes were passes that made life a bit more difficult on the intended recipient (checking runs etc). Bad passes were passes that you wouldn't expect the receiver to take, e.g. the bootlace types. This is what I found:

Good Passes: 45 (76%)
Poor Passes: 10 (17%)
Bad Passes: 4 (7%)

2 of the bad passes were bootlace passes. The other 2 were as the result of bad decisions - 1 a hospital pass to Rob and the other a poor decision to go flat to Carbery off a scrum against the head when he should have gone himself. The 10 poor passes were those that players had to readjust for to take, but they were still good enough to work with. So while only 76% of his passes were good, 93% were serviceable. Then we also have to factor in the conditions (including a 15 minute downpour when the 2 bootlaces passes were thrown).

His kicking was generally of a high standard although there was 1 very poor kick in the first half that only went about 10m and put us under a bit of pressure. His yellow card and PT, with the ref right beside him, was a really needless offence. Defensively he wasn't called on a lot so there was nothing to really report there.

Having watched it live, rewatched it casually and now rewatched it again in detail I can really see no logic for calling McGraths game a horror show or shocking or even awful. It wasn't a great performance. But given the conditions he wasn't that bad at all. Yet some people seem to have their minds made up about the guy already and the smallest amount of evidence can drown out everything else. I think there's an enormous amount of confirmation bias at play here. This was his worst performance of the season and it was still nowhere near as bad as some would have us believe. He sure as hell didn't have a net negative impact.

In fact the biggest issue we had in the game was our ball protection at the breakdown, and guys like Jack McGrath and Mike Ross were guilty of not effectively clearing out players. The number of times we turned ball over in attacking positions was frustrating. We had another 2 tries in us easily if we were better there.

Ah come on man. I think you're in danger of doing the same thing and defending him to the hilt/looking for evidence to support your view.
He had a poor game and people rightly called him on that.

That's it.

Just watched the first 15 again.
On 30 secs, he sticks up a misjudged box kick that goes 10 yards and is knocked backwards.
On 2.30, he throws an unpressured pass to Carbery that skips on the turf.
On 10, he crabs across, is undecided about who he's passing to and throws a hospital pass that gets Henshaw stuck 5 yards behind gainline and almost turned over.
On 11.34, he again mistimes another box and kicks a ball pretty much up in the air.

It's not a crusade against the fellow. He was excellent last week and against Ospreys.

That doesn't make him a bad player, he just had a bad game!

What's a net negative impact for a 9 if it isn't some poor passing, kicking, a poor knock on, a yellow card and not doing much defensively (2 tackles, 1 missed) in 60 odd mins?

[simonokeeffe]

to be objective whats the % of good v bad passes for a 9 to throw during a game for him to be good or bad?

[goreyguy]

He had a poor 1st half, was much better in the second when he came back on I thought, probably would have had a try if he backed himself. Felt like he was overthinking it and not trusting his instincts.

[molloyjh]

Ah come on man. I think you're in danger of doing the same thing and defending him to the hilt/looking for evidence to support your view.
He had a poor game and people rightly called him on that.

That's it.

Just watched the first 15 again.
On 30 secs, he sticks up a misjudged box kick that goes 10 yards and is knocked backwards.
On 2.30, he throws an unpressured pass to Carbery that skips on the turf.
On 10, he crabs across, is undecided about who he's passing to and throws a hospital pass that gets Henshaw stuck 5 yards behind gainline and almost turned over.
On 11.34, he again mistimes another box and kicks a ball pretty much up in the air.

It's not a crusade against the fellow. He was excellent last week and against Ospreys.

That doesn't make him a bad player, he just had a bad game!

What's a net negative impact for a 9 if it isn't some poor passing, kicking, a poor knock on, a yellow card and not doing much defensively (2 tackles, 1 missed) in 60 odd mins?

A net negative impact would be things like being so poor that it is causing attacks to breakdown with a good deal of regularity. He didn't do that. A net negative impact would be regularly making poor decisions. He made a few but not regularly.

I agree he had a poor game. I've said as much a few times myself. I just think terms like "horror show" or "shocking" are massively overstating how poor he was, that's all. He wasn't awful. He had a bad day. And everyone is entitled to one of those every now and again, especially in poor conditions. It's just frustrating to see people so willing to have a right go at him at every opportunity.

For the record, I'm not saying everyone who is knocking him is doing that. But there are definitely some who are.

[molloyjh]

to be objective whats the % of good v bad passes for a 9 to throw during a game for him to be good or bad?

I think that's far too binary a way of looking at it, and possibly part of the issue I have. There isn't simply 2 extremes to judging a performance. Players aren't simply thumbs up or thumbs down. A really great performance from a 9 would probably have no bad passes and good passes in the 90 range as well as similar high quality in other areas like their kicking, decision making etc.

A really bad performance would probably have a good few bad passes and good passes in the 60 range (in other words almost as many poor-bad passes as good passes) with a corresponding level in other areas.

A "shocking", "awful" or "horror show" type performance would probably feature a 9 making as many or more poor-bad passes as good ones where his level of performance is completely debilitating for the team.

It's a sliding scale rather than binary thing. Luke didn't have a debilitating effect on the team. His mistakes had impacts obviously, all mistakes do, but he wasn't completely crippling Leinsters game like a really awful performance would have.

[simonokeeffe]

If you limit it to passing you can definitely be that binary but I know its not just passing theres other things too and they can tip the scales either way just look at Matawalu but passing is the most important part

[goreyguy]

If you limit it to passing you can definitely be that binary but I know its not just passing theres other things too and they can tip the scales either way just look at Matawalu but passing is the most important part

decision making is the most important.

[jezzer]

I think it was a bad game from him and I say that as someone who would start him over Posh.

One in every four of your passes being poor or worse isn't a good start for assessing any SH's performance. He had a couple fo poor box kixks too iirc and made some decision htat could have been better.

But I don't think it was in any way indicative of his form this year and the ball was a bar of soap, so he jsut needs to move on. Going to be wet as well on Sunday, hope his internet order of Stickum Spray arrives in time.

[artaneboy]

So I often review games for the auld blog and on my more detailed review of this game I paid closer attention to McGrath given some of the things written about him here. I focused mainly on his passing, but also the other parts of his game.

In terms of his passing I broke them down into 3 groups. Good passes are those that were of good quality in terms of accuracy, placement and decision making. Poor passes were passes that made life a bit more difficult on the intended recipient (checking runs etc). Bad passes were passes that you wouldn't expect the receiver to take, e.g. the bootlace types. This is what I found:

Good Passes: 45 (76%)
Poor Passes: 10 (17%)
Bad Passes: 4 (7%)

2 of the bad passes were bootlace passes. The other 2 were as the result of bad decisions - 1 a hospital pass to Rob and the other a poor decision to go flat to Carbery off a scrum against the head when he should have gone himself. The 10 poor passes were those that players had to readjust for to take, but they were still good enough to work with. So while only 76% of his passes were good, 93% were serviceable. Then we also have to factor in the conditions (including a 15 minute downpour when the 2 bootlaces passes were thrown).

His kicking was generally of a high standard although there was 1 very poor kick in the first half that only went about 10m and put us under a bit of pressure. His yellow card and PT, with the ref right beside him, was a really needless offence. Defensively he wasn't called on a lot so there was nothing to really report there.

Having watched it live, rewatched it casually and now rewatched it again in detail I can really see no logic for calling McGraths game a horror show or shocking or even awful. It wasn't a great performance. But given the conditions he wasn't that bad at all. Yet some people seem to have their minds made up about the guy already and the smallest amount of evidence can drown out everything else. I think there's an enormous amount of confirmation bias at play here. This was his worst performance of the season and it was still nowhere near as bad as some would have us believe. He sure as hell didn't have a net negative impact.

In fact the biggest issue we had in the game was our ball protection at the breakdown, and guys like Jack McGrath and Mike Ross were guilty of not effectively clearing out players. The number of times we turned ball over in attacking positions was frustrating. We had another 2 tries in us easily if we were better there.

Assuming your figures are correct, all that analysis comes down to this- one quarter of his passes were substandard. That is a bad performance from a scrum half. No buts- no maybes. The 9 passes the bill more than anyone else on the team. His passing needs to be excellent (say above 85%) BEFORE we even start focusing on his other skills. We wouldn't excuse another specialist, say a goal kicker or hooker (throwing-in) being accurate enough, if one-in-four of their efforts went south. I've said it before, defending Luke when he's poor is doing him no favours.


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[artaneboy]

If you limit it to passing you can definitely be that binary but I know its not just passing theres other things too and they can tip the scales either way just look at Matawalu but passing is the most important part

decision making is the most important.

No it's not in a 9. There are really just three decisions open to a SH- pass, kick or break. Passing occurs much more frequently than the others; therefore the likelihood that he will pass to the person standing at 10, means that pass must be excellent to keep the advantage for his team.

There are the occasional SH phenomenons who do other things so amazingly well that their poor passing matters less- and even tolerated. But Luke isn't one of them. To be honest he's not even significantly better than Jamie at the other attributes to get in ahead of him now.


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[wixfjord]

If you limit it to passing you can definitely be that binary but I know its not just passing theres other things too and they can tip the scales either way just look at Matawalu but passing is the most important part

decision making is the most important.

No it's not in a 9. There are really just three decisions open to a SH- pass, kick or break. Passing occurs much more frequently than the others; therefore the likelihood that he will pass to the person standing at 10, means that pass must be excellent to keep the advantage for his team.

There are the occasional SH phenomenons who do other things so amazingly well that their poor passing matters less- and even tolerated. But Luke isn't one of them. To be honest he's not even significantly better than Jamie at the other attributes to get in ahead of him now.


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I think you're slightly underselling the role there!

Listen, McGrath is our starting 9, and probably rightly so.
Nobody wishes the guy ill, nor is anybody 'waiting to jump on mistakes'. That's a fabrication. It's over sensitive to say that people are 'willing to have a right go at him at every opportunity!'. Firstly, he's a pro fecking player and this is a fans form. But also he has been rightly lauded on here after the last few games.

But neither is it right to say he played well on Sat. And there's also probably a bit of truth in the fact that it looked worse because he was the elder statesman at 9/10 yet was completely outplayed by Carbery.

I think what's being argued here is semantics and the specifics of what level of hyperbolic language is used on an internet message board to be honest.

[goreyguy]

If you limit it to passing you can definitely be that binary but I know its not just passing theres other things too and they can tip the scales either way just look at Matawalu but passing is the most important part

decision making is the most important.

No it's not in a 9. There are really just three decisions open to a SH- pass, kick or break. Passing occurs much more frequently than the others; therefore the likelihood that he will pass to the person standing at 10, means that pass must be excellent to keep the advantage for his team.

There are the occasional SH phenomenons who do other things so amazingly well that their poor passing matters less- and even tolerated. But Luke isn't one of them. To be honest he's not even significantly better than Jamie at the other attributes to get in ahead of him now.


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you can be the best passer in the world all you want, but if you consistently make the wrong decisions it won't make much of a difference.

[goreyguy]

I think you're slightly underselling the role there!

Listen, McGrath is our starting 9, and probably rightly so.
Nobody wishes the guy ill, nor is anybody 'waiting to jump on mistakes'. That's a fabrication. It's over sensitive to say that people are 'willing to have a right go at him at every opportunity!'. Firstly, he's a pro fecking player and this is a fans form. But also he has been rightly lauded on here after the last few games.

But neither is it right to say he played well on Sat. And there's also probably a bit of truth in the fact that it looked worse because he was the elder statesman at 9/10 yet was completely outplayed by Carbery.

I think what's being argued here is semantics and the specifics of what level of hyperbolic language is used on an internet message board to be honest.

mcgrath has been hyper analysed & criticised by some from day 1..

[wixfjord]

I think you're slightly underselling the role there!

Listen, McGrath is our starting 9, and probably rightly so.
Nobody wishes the guy ill, nor is anybody 'waiting to jump on mistakes'. That's a fabrication. It's over sensitive to say that people are 'willing to have a right go at him at every opportunity!'. Firstly, he's a pro fecking player and this is a fans form. But also he has been rightly lauded on here after the last few games.

But neither is it right to say he played well on Sat. And there's also probably a bit of truth in the fact that it looked worse because he was the elder statesman at 9/10 yet was completely outplayed by Carbery.

I think what's being argued here is semantics and the specifics of what level of hyperbolic language is used on an internet message board to be honest.

mcgrath has been hyper analysed & critiqued by some from day 1..

He has been hyper analysed absolutely. Just like most Leinster players on here. And particularly guys who have been so highly touted.

I think you're purposefully using misleading language though.

Criticised? Not without good reason. But I would probably say critiqued.

Do you personally have a problem with players being critiqued for mistakes?

Again, there's a weird sensitivity when it comes to talking about McGrath for some reason.

[artaneboy]

decision making is the most important.

No it's not in a 9. There are really just three decisions open to a SH- pass, kick or break. Passing occurs much more frequently than the others; therefore the likelihood that he will pass to the person standing at 10, means that pass must be excellent to keep the advantage for his team.

There are the occasional SH phenomenons who do other things so amazingly well that their poor passing matters less- and even tolerated. But Luke isn't one of them. To be honest he's not even significantly better than Jamie at the other attributes to get in ahead of him now.


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you can be the best passer in the world all you want, but if you consistently make the wrong decisions it won't make much of a difference.

Generally speaking for all players decision making is a necessary skill, rather than an optional one.

But no, I have to insist- even if passing is not the best decision for a given situation, if the pass is accurate (and the offside line policed, of course) the OH has the advantage in clearing or passing on the ball.


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