Leinster A 17-18

[neiliog93]

Try on the stroke of half time due to their scrum dominance (scrum-half sniped over)...probably lucky not to concede a penalty try or a yellow card. It's a pity we don't have an experienced head like Michael Bent to bring on off the bench. I can't see Aungier shoring things up, but Dooley might make a difference. No proper second row on the bench either.

[mildlyinterested]

not looking great at all.

[Keith]

Try on the stroke of half time due to their scrum dominance (scrum-half sniped over)...probably lucky not to concede a penalty try or a yellow card. It's a pity we don't have an experienced head like Michael Bent to bring on off the bench. I can't see Aungier shoring things up, but Dooley might make a difference. No proper second row on the bench either.

No proper second row on the pitch either!

[mildlyinterested]

this has been a tough watch.

[fourthirtythree]

Dooley's yellow card is really going to help scrum completion...

[tingman]

Shocking so far....can anyone hold on to the bloody ball.

[hugonaut]

A bad performance from the As, but wouldn't fault their effort. Difficult weather conditions were referenced by the commentator, so it must have been wetter than it looked.

Our scrum was massacred. Not sure how many penalties we gave away there, but I would conservatively estimate six. That's a lot of scrum penalties. We just looked outmatched in both rows - out-wrestled in the front row and out-pushed in the second row. Vakh had a particularly tough time, but nobody did well. Dooley a bit unfortunate to be sin-binned; I think he was just taking the rap for a bad unit. Aungier looked pretty good [and very big] when he came on in the second half, and Doris showed up well when he came into the backrow.

Our back three [but particularly Jack Kelly] were very poor under the high ball. I don't think Kelly caught one of the three I saw kicked to him, and I only tuned in after 15 minutes. Even Adam Byrne, who is normally very good in the air, struggled with ball kicked to him. As a result, we saw a lot of knock ons, thus a lot of scrums and then a lot of penalties and free-kicks against us.

Ealing well worth their win, better team on the day.

[mildlyinterested]

would rather they had went with the two under-20's in the row than the Kearney/Nagle combo.

[the spoofer]

would rather they had went with the two under-20's in the row than the Kearney/Nagle combo.

Nagle came in as an experiment that has not worked out. Kearney came in with a big rep from Connacht and has been poor in almost every game I've seen him play. I wonder have the concussions had an effect?

[neiliog93]

would rather they had went with the two under-20's in the row than the Kearney/Nagle combo.

Nagle came in as an experiment that has not worked out. Kearney came in with a big rep from Connacht and has been poor in almost every game I've seen him play. I wonder have the concussions had an effect?

For some reason Nagle has been given another year. He'll be 31 next season and is woefully below the level required. I can understand giving the younger Mick Kearney another season when you consider our lack of second row depth, but Nagle should really be given up on as a pro player at this stage.

[mildlyinterested]

how anyone, let alone Leo Cullen chose Ian Nagle over Tadhg Beirne...

Gavin Thornbury too in fact.

[cormac]

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

[Dave Cahill]

Leinster have announced the name of the development team they'll be fielding in this new competition. Munster.

[neiliog93]

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

Seems like it will be an old school round robin format where all 8 teams player each other once for a total of seven fixtures, and whoever's top of the league at the end wins. In the era of play-offs, I kind of like that. I guess who gets either 3 or 4 home games will be done by a draw.

[Ruckedtobits]

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

Seems like it will be an old school round robin format where all 8 teams player each other once for a total of seven fixtures, and whoever's top of the league at the end wins. In the era of play-offs, I kind of like that. I guess who gets either 3 or 4 home games will be done by a draw.

It certainly makes more sense than the omelette that Nucifora and Scott Walker are trying to peddle to the Senior Clubs of integrating Academy and Development players into a couple of Clubs in each Province and creating a new Division 1 format to the All Ireland League with two Clubs from each Province (from 2019-20) in an 8-team semi-professional League. "Semi-professional" because they want the residual Club players to continue as amateurs , despite playing with, and against, professionals.

[Dave Cahill]

Thats not the kind of thing a godlike genius would be doing

[ronk]

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

So one medium injury means you don't get an A season.

Almost no scop to adapt and focus on areas of development.

[Ruckedtobits]

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

So one medium injury means you don't get an A season.

Almost no scop to adapt and focus on areas of development.

One of our core Senior team "managing" an injury means you don't get an 'A' season but spend lots of time travelling as No. 24 or 25. There's plenty of examples.