Leinster v Edinburgh Fri 29 Sep 19:35 TG4 & BBC Alba

[raith rover]

Edinburgh's defence was bloody good, we should be happy with the win, could very easily have been a loss.

From a Scottish point of view this evening may just have been the night Edinburgh finally woke up and started to bring a real challenge to the Irish provinces and Glasgow.
Watch out for James Johnstone at 13. This lad can play.

Are you drunk?!

Edinburgh have always been capable of the odd glorious in defeat valiant effort type game. Their problem has always been actually winning games week in, week out. I've not seen tonights game but it seems they ran Leinster close for most of the game. Very few teams will do that in the RDS. But unless tonight's intensity level becomes the minimum for next week, and the next, and the next and they start winning games it will be entirely meaningless. So, good effort, but lets not get carried away!

Unlike you I did see the game and I don't think I was getting carried away with my comments. Definitely drunk though. Well played Leinster.

[Ruckedtobits]

Edinburgh's defence was bloody good, we should be happy with the win, could very easily have been a loss.

From a Scottish point of view this evening may just have been the night Edinburgh finally woke up and started to bring a real challenge to the Irish provinces and Glasgow.
Watch out for James Johnstone at 13. This lad can play.

Wholly agree with that assessment. If Cockerill can produce that performance with so many changes, he has a range of players who could produce a lot of good results this season.

The other element that interested me is who is providing the backs coaching? Admittedly our mid-field are not renowned defenders but Edinburgh's lines of running and angles of passing were a thing of beauty in the first quarter and even in the last 15 mins when they finally got some ball again, they were making the Leinster defence look slow and uncertain.

Very impressive display from Edinburgh both in attack and defence.

[Ruckedtobits]

Thoughts on the game:

Ian Davies is very lucky his linesman were willing to make calls because he sure as hell wasn't. Showed exactly why he doesn't get the big games. Disclaimer: he is in no way at fault for Leinsters poor performance. That was our own doing. But still a shocking performance. Basic things he's missing.

Leinster were dire

For as much as I like ROL he is doing a very good Noel Reid circa 2013 impression with a complete inability to defend at crucial times. A textbook tackle missed led to a line break and a poor read to bite in and left us exposed out wide. Centre is not his position if he can't handle himself in D.

I like Luke as a player and I think he gets too much criticism. But tonight he was far too poor at his primary job. Passes went to ground or the receiver had to adjust to receive too many times. This was a big problem with us being quite flat and Davies forgetting what offside was. Either way, that split second adjustment and Edinburghs willingness to hammer the tackle really hurt us a times. I'm sorry if Dev has to jump to catch your pass. It's a sh!t pass.

I will commend his excellent tackle on their 19 who he easily gave up 30kgs to and his technique was perfect to bring him down.

Jordi was our stand out for me. I felt bad because had he known it was a loosehead on the end of the offload and not a back, I feel he would have pinned his ears back and gone for the line himself, might well have made it.

Deegan did well when he came on.

Larmour at 13 instead of McFadden was odd. And he was invisible.

The fact the officials not only missed Sexton getting elbowed and shoved in the turf was bad but to give the penalty the other way was comical. Fecking inept.

What changed in the scrum? We got 2 penalties when the Byrnes and Porter came on having gotten nowhere previously. Surely those lads are not better yet than McGrath and Furlong?!

I feel it's gonna be a long October.

@arsebiscuits1, I also have the same query about our scrum after the changes. It seemed that we went forward on loose-head side both times. But either way it was impressive.

Also agree with your other comments but feel you're a little harsh on Davies who reffed with lots of common sense rather than the World Rugby rule book and Directives. Particularly the case in regard to Kearney's air-take in first half where he covered about 4 mtrs in the air and caught the ball and landed on top of the Edinburgh winger.

[Peg Leg]

Thank fook bomber left SA early to prepare for that game

[TerenureJim]

Brutal game last night, ref was poor for both teams, impressed with Edinburgh good to see them developing its needed for the league. All in all yep we were poor, we looked like a team still early in the season, still getting up to week in week out match intensity, coming off the back of a disrupted couple of weeks training, bedding in new players and players returning from injury and IRFU sanctioned rests.

We're probably right where we could/should have expected to be at this stage of the season.

Wouldn't panic at all, not worried if we look shite but are getting results in September, much rather things click towards the end of the season and see some good rugby in April/May.

[riocard911]

Didn't think much of Fardy whinging to the ref about getting pushed in the back. I thought he was supposed to be our new "enforcer"....

[fourthirtythree]

He had been told he was off if he hit him again and as their loose head had been also I guess he was holding the ref to his promise

[arsebiscuits1]

@arsebiscuits1, I also have the same query about our scrum after the changes. It seemed that we went forward on loose-head side both times. But either way it was impressive.

Also agree with your other comments but feel you're a little harsh on Davies who reffed with lots of common sense rather than the World Rugby rule book and Directives. Particularly the case in regard to Kearney's air-take in first half where he covered about 4 mtrs in the air and caught the ball and landed on top of the Edinburgh winger.

I guess one could look at me being a little harsh. I can appreciate a ref trying to let the game flow. And sometimes letting it flow is letting stuff go.

But stuff like after every hit Edi made after we fielded a high ball they just dove head first into the ruck straight off their feet. Absolutely lethal tactic.

After the break before Fardy dropped it they came in from the worst angle I've ever seen for a ruck entry and slowed it far too much. Should have been a penalty and yellow. They'd been leaking penalties all night in their 22 and this was as cynical as it gets.

But I digress. Refs have a tough job and it doesn't explain the shortcomings we have this season. Especially in D

141/21 102/27 135/31 are the tackle stats from our last 3 games. That's 22% missed. Not comfortable when our team is missing 1 in 5 tackles.

But the missing tackles doesn't tell the whole story.

We worryingly passive and giving up cheap meters. And when we give up those metres were not competing at the break down. All a team has to do is lather rinse repeat to see some serious inroads against us

[Hippo]

Don't know what came over JS and his attempt to remove Klein's head, that could have been even more costly than just relieving the pressure on Edinburgh's line, he was lucky not to see yellow. He looked even narkier than usual for his time on the pitch.

Apart from the obvious turnstile stuff in midfield it was also very disappointing to see a return to the white line fever I thought we'd managed to jettison a while back. McGrath was particularly guilty with a couple of very ambitious efforts. The Hun haven't been up to much yet but there's still a massive improvement required before next week. Trying not to look as far ahead as the European games!

[Ruckedtobits]

One of my old coaches, now sadly departed, would have loved that game last night. We disagreed about little, except the fact that he loved the game more than his and my team.

He would have said about last night, "Timeless tactics against thoughless opponents". Scottish packs have been spoiling Irish line-outs and mauls since long before the game went professional. For years, Irish teams employed the same tactics against the English, but rarely against the Welsh or Scots. Maybe we didn't fear them enough.

In the Leinster pack, Toner and Ruddock were the two players you would expect to recognise the opponents tactics and alter our strategy. But they never changed and it was nearly a fatal omission.

Leinster wanted to catch and drive with seven forwards. Edinburgh anticipated this and robbed at least six balls caught by Leinster, before we could set up our maul. They also wanted to stop our line-out maul by fracturing our maul. They did so on at least four occasions.

What to do?

1. Take line-outs off the top.
2. Alter line-out numbers to limit the actions of the opponents.
3. Transfer the catch in the air before catcher reaches the ground.
4. Set up mauls in mid-field off short line-outs.
5. Throw the ball to No 2 and drive the catcher immediately (as Edinburgh did).
6. Speed up the line outs with varied positions but ball passed off the top.

Each of these tactics is as old as the hills, but still valid defences against having your line-out plundered by a well prepared opponent. Not to have altered the preferred tactics or gameplan was at least sloppy but bordered on arrorgant in the circumstances.

After the event, Leinster would do well to consider replicating the Edinburgh tactics against the power (and skill) of the Montpellier line-out in a fortnight's time.

Although Leinster were introducing a few very experienced players last night, our reaction to our opponents tactics and skills was very poor. Players may have very good coaches but they must never jettison their personal responsibility to out-think their opponents.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Thank fook bomber left SA early to prepare for that game

[kermischocolate]

The other element that interested me is who is providing the backs coaching? Admittedly our mid-field are not renowned defenders but Edinburgh's lines of running and angles of passing were a thing of beauty in the first quarter and even in the last 15 mins when they finally got some ball again, they were making the Leinster defence look slow and uncertain.

Very impressive display from Edinburgh both in attack and defence.

Duncan Hodge. (has been for a couple of seasons. Was caretaker head coach last season after Solomons left).

More interesting is Calum MacRae is their new defence coach- he was head coach of Scotland 7s last year who had a very good season culminating in being the first ever Scottish rugby team of any variety to beat NZ and beat England in Twickers to win the final tournament of the Series in May. So a very attack-minded defence coach.

[simonokeeffe]

Edinburgh were too cute/cynical for that ref by far BUT anyone else notice McGrath has thankfully cut out the arm flapping at the ruck?

Reid/ROL combo is just not good enough for real teams

We did leave a BP behind. DK will follow an all consuming playbook but doesnt have the instinct. Larmour looks like he might

Hooker and pre Lowe 11 look like problems

[ronk]

He had been told he was off if he hit him again and as their loose head had been also I guess he was holding the ref to his promise

He was right.

I've always hated sanctimonious refs who are eager to punish you for defending yourself but actively mock the victim when he does what he's supposed to.

If you want fights then let them settle it themselves. If you want them to show restraint and rely on the ref delivering justice then the ref had better step up.

It was pretty clear from the first scrap that the next man in was the real problem, he would have been the guy to punish.

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[FourMasters]

This kind of rusty performance is par for the course at this stage. Main worry is the midfield, these two can improve their defence, but attack?
I didn't think much of the decision making when the subs came on. Once we lost a line-out when Byrne came on, I do think that it was stupid to persist with kicks to the corner. I'm not sure that Sexton makes allowances that he's not playing with Lions/internationals in every position. Sexton should have taken responsibility and kicked for goal, show the kids he's prepared to put himself under the pressure. Unlike others, I thought Sexton directed the game reasonably well, he'll be better for this one under his belt.
Stand out moment for me: Dave Kearney's cover tackle, and roll to put yer man's legs over the sideline. Larmour creased someone too, I was worried about wear and tear on Larmour's frame, but he is a stocky fella, as long as he gets his technique right he should be okay.
Worst moments: 8 points clear, a minute left, and a bonus point to chase. JGP kicks. Then DK (I think) kicks. Why not try to play out of our 22? So what if we cough up an intercept, we can't be beaten, and I doubt giving an LBP to Edinburgh would define our season.

[wixfjord]

That was braindead alright.

For a guy who's supposed to trade on his smarts and effectiveness in lieu of physical gifts, DK sure can do some stupid things at times.
The decision to go himself on their tryline instead of spreading it for a definite try was another.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I thought DK was poor (apart from one brilliant cover tackle) but in his defence I think he was injured and probably would have gone off earlier if we hadnt already brought Larmour on. He looks devoid of confidence anyway so not sure what he'd have done if he wasn't injured but I reckon that's why he kicked.

[paddyor]

This kind of rusty performance is par for the course at this stage. Main worry is the midfield, these two can improve their defence, but attack?
I didn't think much of the decision making when the subs came on. Once we lost a line-out when Byrne came on, I do think that it was stupid to persist with kicks to the corner. I'm not sure that Sexton makes allowances that he's not playing with Lions/internationals in every position. Sexton should have taken responsibility and kicked for goal, show the kids he's prepared to put himself under the pressure. Unlike others, I thought Sexton directed the game reasonably well, he'll be better for this one under his belt.
Stand out moment for me: Dave Kearney's cover tackle, and roll to put yer man's legs over the sideline. Larmour creased someone too, I was worried about wear and tear on Larmour's frame, but he is a stocky fella, as long as he gets his technique right he should be okay.
Worst moments: 8 points clear, a minute left, and a bonus point to chase. JGP kicks. Then DK (I think) kicks. Why not try to play out of our 22? So what if we cough up an intercept, we can't be beaten, and I doubt giving an LBP to Edinburgh would define our season.

Is it really too much to expect that a hooker will hit a jumper:
1 in 2 times
1 in 3 times
1 in 4 times

I really don't think it is. We were also chasing the BP at that stage.

[neiliog93]

NIQ hooker when Nacewa retires at the end of the season please (with Strauss' contract also unlikely to be renewed).

[molloyjh]

I think we need to try and remember that this September was probably the most disrupted and messiest start to a season we've possibly ever had. Have we had a week yet where we haven't had multiple players playing their first game of the season? Players coming back from Ireland, the Lions and injury all at different times. The playing squad split up for 2 weeks with half the squad not having a coach for a week and a half, and then the coaching team being split up for a bit too. It doesn't excuse everything we've seen, but it should serve to lower expectations somewhat. This week is the first week where we'll have a full squad all prepping for the game this weekend for the full week. And we still have a bunch of injury concerns in the back line. We've been a bit all over the shop through no fault of our own and it really has shown. As a result I'm not overly concerned about a lot of the issues we've seen. The only things I am concerned with is hooker and centre. The former we can get away with to a degree, but the lack of real depth at centre is massive I think. And Edinburgh showed just why on Friday. At times they were breaking through the midfield for fun. We badly need Henshaw back, even if Reid was fully fit.

But look, despite being a bit of a mess for the first 5 weeks we have still accumulated 19 of a possible 25 points. It's not a bad return at all given the circumstances. Now we need to put that behind us and start to kick on. And where better to start than a Munster game really.