Leinster v Dragons Sat 3rd Dec at 19.35 pm

[wixfjord]

He just looks a a sped up of version of rob kearney. Runs straight into opposite player. Also one of the thickest players to play for leinster for quite some time. To think we kept him and let kelleher leave is mind boggling. Dragons better team second half. Better sort line out out or it could be a long evening next Friday. Let's hope cronin hits his man as Tracy and Strauss are awful with their throwing.

Ah stop, RK is a top notch FB. Kirchner isn't near him.

[wixfjord]

Charlie Rock looked impressive when he came on. Slick passer.

[Oldschool]

That got very sloppy after a good opening 20 minutes. Still, five points in the bag.

Dare I say it but we "bombed" a bit in the second half.

[outcast eddie]

Our skill levels dropped significantly with the substitutions while theirs improved, certainly with their scrum half.

[Peg Leg]

Isa playing with Richardt's hands did not help tonight.

[Ruckedtobits]

Dreadful second half display against inept opposition, no other way to say it. Some strong individual performances (Conan, Leavy, Carberry, A.Byrne) but the standard really dropped, on everything from set-piece function to individual skills. Bonus point win, we'll take it.

+1
Totally concur with that assessment. Have never previously felt like asking for a 25% refund on way out, but the substitutions made the last 20 mins a joke and instead of Leinster closing that 60 points differential with Munster and Ospreys, we pi*#ed away the last 20 minutes like a kids picnic.

Have no interest in debuts unless the players coming in add something to the team at the time. Tonight, very few, if any, added anything with their arrival.

[wixfjord]

In the last three games, Jack Conan has averaged 12 carries, 52 yards, 3.3 def beaten, 1.5 clean breaks and 12 tackles per game!

And he's missed one tackle in total.

Mental stats.

[Ruckedtobits]

Having spat out my dummy about subs, time to wax lyrical about Rory O'Loughlin and to a lesser extent Jeremy Loughman. O'Loughlin, outside Carbery but not Byrne, looked excellent in attack and defence. If all his colleagues had been as alert and precise our 8 first-half visits to their 22 would have yielded at least six tries.

Loughman has switched from Loose to Tight Head over the past 15 /18 months. A hard ask for a 22 year-old but tonight looked like good progress, not dominant but well survived. He has lots of good habits in broken play and will be a good Squad addition if he can survive at THP.

Conan, Carbery and Leavy were top notch, not error free but oozing skills. Molony, McGrath and Ruddock lacked nothing in effort but not as much stardust.

Zane, Isa and Treacy had horrors with almost nothing working for even one of the three. Dooley and Adam Byrne had excellent first half but many mistakes thereafter.

[wixfjord]

I thought Loughman was good in open play, but was eaten in the scrum. Under pressure all night and gave away 2 (3?) pens directly.

[carlow man]

Kearney used to be a top notch full back but not anymore. U must be watching a different player. Over the past 3 years he has been in poor form. Shame you haven't seen what most other people have.

[cormac]

I thought Loughman was good in open play, but was eaten in the scrum. Under pressure all night and gave away 2 (3?) pens directly.

Yep. Hopefully whatever caused Bent to miss tonight's game isn't serious and he'll be available for the next few weeks. Loughman's scrummaging still needs a lot of improvement.

[Gearzbox2]

Lots of positives....lots of negatives sadly aswel
First 40 was good stuff, Maloney and Conan pick of the forwards for me along with McGrath/Carberry in the backs
Line out stunk as did the scrum throughout
Natural enough for the game to fizzle out but the subs had no impact which was surprising
Delighted to see Trigger back in the RDS and I thought he had solid outing
Tracy, Zane and (as much as I hate to say it) Isa had games to forget really

[leinsterforever]

Might be a good idea to retain Tracy over Cronin for the Northampton game for the sake of continuity

[Gearzbox2]

Don't think Tracy will make next weeks squad
I reckon Cronin/Strauss will be at 2/16
Conan could edge Rhys for bench spot with BR of Seanie, Josh and Jamie

[Xanthippe]

Don't think Tracy will make next weeks squad
I reckon Cronin/Strauss will be at 2/16
Conan could edge Rhys for bench spot with BR of Seanie, Josh and Jamie

Not so sure about Strauss - I thought he took a knock just before the final whistle and with his history of head injuries .....

[Ruckedtobits]

Whoever we select in front-row needs to be in the whole of their health as Saints did a number on Leicester front-row a couple of times and that was without Hartley. Expect a big contest up front and Leinster trying to play with real tempo.

[artaneboy]

Don't think Tracy will make next weeks squad
I reckon Cronin/Strauss will be at 2/16
Conan could edge Rhys for bench spot with BR of Seanie, Josh and Jamie

Not so sure about Strauss - I thought he took a knock just before the final whistle and with his history of head injuries .....

Yeah- and in any case Strauss was hardly any better at the darts than Tracey. No reason to promote him really.

I'm assuming the line out woes were a collective "systems failure" based on the new pairings; but still very frustrating to see this weakness emerge relatively consistently seemingly whenever there's a new group on the field. Rarely as bad as today- but regularly enough to be more than irritating.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hippo]

Agree completely with the consensus here, the second half and in particular the last 20 were really poor.

Conan, Leavy and Carbery all excellent. Carbery will be some player, he has so much time on the ball. And there's only two 'r's in his surname, people!

[suisse]

Zane Kirchner. 31 times capped South African full back, 2 time Super Rugby winner and he has a Currie Cup medal too. 70 appearances for Leinster.

In a game like that, with so many internationals out, it is not unreasonable to expect a man of Kirchner's experience to really stand out, like Nacewa almost always does. Leinster were playing a poor team, and Leinster themselves were poor for at least 30 mins of the game. The only time Kirchner stood out was when he made an error. Leinster are paying Kirchner to wear a jersey and make sure we have the required 15 men starting the game. That's it. He's not contributing anything else. So whatever they're paying him, they're being ripped off. Give that jersey to someone else.

[suisse]

Terrible last 30 mins from Leinster. Horrible crowd too. A lot of people, including me, don't wanna pay outlandish fees to watch such cr@p. A 6 pack from Lidl and some chicken wings in the oven.