Zebre v Leinster Sat 2.30 Eir

[IanD]

The match today reminded me of the Ireland v England Legends game.

Very low intensity and it looked like the lads met in the car park for first time.

[desperado]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/a ... d=12200842

he's right; and it's not just at test level. Zebre today were ridiculously offside most of the time (Leinster on occasion but not to the same degree). Davies (who was pretty bad throughout with his officiating), gave a few token pens for offside. It is killing attacking rugby.

[D4surfer]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/a ... d=12200842

he's right; and it's not just at test level. Zebre today were ridiculously offside most of the time (Leinster on occasion but not to the same degree). Davies (who was pretty bad throughout with his officiating), gave a few token pens for offside. It is killing attacking rugby.

It’s the touch judge’s responsibility to police offside. Both were Italians and made Welsh TMOs look unbiased which is some achievement.

[Oldschool]

You cannot deny we have been awful this afternoon.
That follows a game against Scarlets , where we were very poor, which follows these games last year where we didn’t win a game during the 6 Nations

My point is that this group of players are not as good as many believe
We are always hearing about our strength in depth
I don’t believe we have the depth that others believe

Last word, we were awful today

It's hard to motivate yourself for an away game against Zebre anyway, let alone when you know you are basically already guaranteed top spot and it's 6 nations season. You can't play well all the time and btw our strength in depth is the envy of most of Europe.

It's the envy of the part of Europe that is the rest of Ireland that we should be worried about.

[Serb]

I thought he was really poor as a seven. Good player, big prospect, but our backrow was completely unbalanced by not having a proper openside out there.

I’d disagree to a point. I think the area he didn’t deliver on from an open side flanker’s perspective is defensive breakdown work. I think I addressed that at a broader level, but he basically never contested in any effective way at ruck time.

I think the main areas he did deliver in were line speed and work rate. He made more tackles than anyone else at 19, and didn’t miss any. I thought he generally got off the line well. He basically plays 7 like van der Flier which is not too shabby.

[suisse]

That was a really weird game. Apart from going home with 5 points there were hardly any positives from the game. Players have bad games and can slip out of form but for the entire team to inplode like that, against a very average team, from 25th min to half time is absolutely ridiculous. If you showed that period to a complete novice and asked them to point out which group of players contributed to a double winning season, they would not have said blue.

I don't remember either winger getting his hands on the ball in space. Dave's technique for the missed tackle was of schoolboy standard. For a guy with his vast experience, that was horrendous. But they won. They scored 6 tries and we know Leo and Stu are gonna beat the sh!t out of them in training this week.

[Dave Cahill]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but Deegan's second try - the final try of the match - was our 100th try of the season

[Dave Cahill]

Also, again missed by a lot of people - including myself and the commentators - a Zebre player was sinbinned after Ross Byrne scored, so that period where we actually lost all control of the game we were only facing 14!

[blockhead]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but Deegan's second try - the final try of the match - was our 100th try of the season

In 21 games, wow. We have 73 Pro14 tries so far, we had 83 for the conference last season in total. So we are really bombing it this season.
Pro14 4.86 tries/game
Heino 4.5 tries/game

[suisse]

IIRC, the referee sinbinned their openside for a no arms tackle. The penalty was definitely awarded for that, maybe he was binned for persistent infringing by the whole team. Took one for the team etc. It's weird because in the same play, maybe 2 or 3 phases later, the referee also called a new penalty advantage against #2 for a no arms tackle. If the #7 was binned for the nature of his tackle, why wasn't the hooker as well?

[D4surfer]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W5XQ1E18bqE

Highlights

[cormac]

Two wins at home to the Kings and Cheetahs in the next fortnight will guarantee us top spot with four games to go.

[artaneboy]

Also, again missed by a lot of people - including myself and the commentators - a Zebre player was sinbinned after Ross Byrne scored, so that period where we actually lost all control of the game we were only facing 14!

Noticed that. It was also peculiarly the longest sin bin 10 minutes I’ve ever experienced.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Oldschool]

Two wins at home to the Kings and Cheetahs in the next fortnight will guarantee us top spot with four games to go.

I'd say we are already there but not mathematically just yet.

[Blueberry]

Bizarre game, poor officiating and had the feeling of a pre season friendly from KO. League is over in terms of this phase anyway, leo the lion could line out for the rest of the season and we'd still finish top. It is going to take some solid coaching to maintain momentum and get the lads humming for Ulster and hopefully a big heino semi. Think the weakness of the PRO 14 is not helping our cause.

COB the one major positive from the game coming on nicely and got across the gain line every carry.

[bails]

Probably needs to be said the standard and consistency of the officiating was dreadful.
From kicks direct to touch, forward passes, off feet at breakdown, in from the side and offside across the threequarters, on both sides, it was definitely not Mr Davies and his team's best day !

[Xanthippe]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but Deegan's second try - the final try of the match - was our 100th try of the season

Damn missed that - because of the three penalty tries I had the players totals down as 97

[backrower8]

Probably needs to be said the standard and consistency of the officiating was dreadful.
From kicks direct to touch, forward passes, off feet at breakdown, in from the side and offside across the threequarters, on both sides, it was definitely not Mr Davies and his team's best day !

With the exception of 'kicks direct to touch', all of the transgrssions you reference are normal practice in all matches nowadays. There is no real competition for the ball at the breakdown possible and, as Slatts pointed out in his S.Times interview with Peter O'Reilly yesterday, the 26-27 phase crash-bang-wallop-before-an-error-is-made style of rugby is just plain boring.

I am sure these rules are beug airbrushed in the name of continuity for all the new fans that pay for merchandise and subscriptions and sponsorships but the integrity of the game is being lost and there is no attacking play possible until a turnover is forced in whatever way possible.

[backrower8]

I thought he was really poor as a seven. Good player, big prospect, but our backrow was completely unbalanced by not having a proper openside out there.

How so? Leaving the 2 converted tries aside in a 16 point game, I thought he was our best back-rower on the day. 19 unmissed tackles, added value to the ball practically every time he touched it, which was plenty. He is Heaslip-esque in that regard.

[desperado]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/a ... d=12200842

he's right; and it's not just at test level. Zebre today were ridiculously offside most of the time (Leinster on occasion but not to the same degree). Davies (who was pretty bad throughout with his officiating), gave a few token pens for offside. It is killing attacking rugby.

It’s the touch judge’s responsibility to police offside. Both were Italians and made Welsh TMOs look unbiased which is some achievement.

not quite; they are assistant refs not touchies anymore, which means they should be more 'assistance' to the ref than the old days of touch judges. However, the ref cannot abrogate responsibility. Whats the point in the ref looking along the line, and motioning with arms for defenders to move back in line with the hindmost - if they are not going to take action when the line is clearly creeping up. It's becoming a big issue imo.