Leinster v Southern Kings Fri 7.55 Eir

[tingman]

Thats more like it....

[mildlyinterested]

f%~k? Barry Daly looks to have done his knee.

[mildlyinterested]

Kelleher injured..

[mildlyinterested]

now looks to be okay.

[mildlyinterested]

try number 2 for Reid.

[wixfjord]

Reid is in the form of his life. Looks a complete class above in games like this.

[wixfjord]

Lowe has been quiet. Looks like he's carrying a bit of timber too.

Doris, Daly, Reid and E. Byrne the pick of the lot imo.

[mildlyinterested]

Good 1st half for Kelleher.

[Laighin Break]

Well that was a bullshit penalty against McFadden

[Jonny tight lips]

Lowe has been quiet. Looks like he's carrying a bit of timber too.

Doris, Daly, Reid and E. Byrne the pick of the lot imo.

I’d put COB in that list too, played particularly well in the 1st 40

[wixfjord]

Enjoyed that, bloody freezing though.

Lots of young guys sticking up their hands. Patterson looked lively when he came on.

Ferg and Lowe look a bit rusty. Could do with another 80 next weekend I'd say.

COB is a cracking footballer. Looks really comfortable at this level already.

Kelleher looked good. Throwing action is strange though.

Mick K looked in a bit of pain going off. Hopefully he's not too bad.

[Ruckedtobits]

Some really good attacking but our maul and defensive set-up look very sloppy. Excellent result in which we got every refereeing decision and deserved most of them. But Kings are a horror show for the Rep of our League. They really force me to the conclusion we'ed be better off with the Georgians and Romanians, or even the Yanks and Canucks.

[paddyor]

Some really good attacking but our maul and defensive set-up look very sloppy. Excellent result in which we got every refereeing decision and deserved most of them. But Kings are a horror show for the Rep of our League. They really force me to the conclusion we'ed be better off with the Georgians and Romanians, or even the Yanks and Canucks.

I thought we dealt with the Maul quite effectively as the game went on and even forced a few tunrovers. When you're signing dragons cast-offs like Sarel Pretorius.....

[Dave Cahill]

I thought it was a decent performance, not exceptional, but decent - we always seemed to be at 75%, which was all that was really needed against a poor enough Kings sides. The front rows all did well, Moloney was super and the back row were just too good for their opposite numbers without really having to kill themselves. Noel Reid is a delight to watch on nights like this.

I think you're being a bit unfair on Pretorius Paddy, he's always been a quality operator going back to his Cheetahs days where he was considered unlucky not to be a Springbok

As an aside, I wasn't at the match tonight - watched it on the telly instead... boy do they give Leo the Lion a lot of screen time!

[hugonaut]

Enjoyable hit-out against a team who would struggle in the Celtic Cup. Lots of good performances, and some really good games from a couple of the lads who don't necessarily get a lot of press coverage.

Reider is in the form of his career. We should enjoy it while he's still here. Not sure what has prompted such a late-career extravaganza, but if this was Joey Carbery, the national rugby media would be writing full-page articles about it. Maybe it's because he's the senior player in most backlines he plays in, maybe it's the fact that he was pushed at the start of the season to play a bit of outhalf, to kick goals and to be more authoritative, maybe there's an element of the shackles being off as he's moving at the end of the season, or maybe it's just as obvious as him hitting his prime when a player should hit it, in the second half of his 20s when athletic ability is matched with experience ... whatever it is, he's blowing the lights out at the moment. He's playing right at the height of his ability, and it's a real pleasure to watch.

Ed Byrne had a blinder. I'm a huge Jack McGrath fan, but Byrne is playing better rugby than him at the moment. 23 possessions [20 carries/3 passes] and a couple of tries is a hell of a night's work.

Big game from Ross Byrne at outhalf, attacked the line well, passed well and really looked as though he had the Kings on a string. Hugh O'Sullivan did very well from my perspective ... the pass is very quick through the air, and his ruck-to-ruck movement was really sharp and has improved a lot since the start of the season. He doesn't seem to get scragged as much as he was earlier this term: if the ball is at the back of the ruck, he's there too. He has done well this season. We haven't missed Nick McCarthy at all.

Doris looked like he was enjoying himself out there, especially on the kick-off returns when he got a run up. Max Deegan had a couple of unusual handling errors, but took his try brilliantly. All in all, a good evening's work against a shambolic opposition.

[Peg Leg]

Reider is in the form of his career. We should enjoy it while he's still here. Not sure what has prompted such a late-career extravaganza, but if this was Joey Carbery, the national rugby media would be writing full-page articles about it. Maybe it's because he's the senior player in most backlines he plays in, maybe it's the fact that he was pushed at the start of the season to play a bit of outhalf, to kick goals and to be more authoritative, maybe there's an element of the shackles being off as he's moving at the end of the season, or maybe it's just as obvious as him hitting his prime when a player should hit it, in the second half of his 20s when athletic ability is matched with experience ... whatever it is, he's blowing the lights out at the moment. He's playing right at the height of his ability, and it's a real pleasure to watch.

I know I'm a bit of a Reider Stan, but given the stage of the career and his performances this season my preference would be to keep Noel over RK or Tomane or probably both.

Btw is he left or right hand dominant? I know we've become accustomed to his passing but he threw 2 beauties in the first half of his left. Both skip passes were inch perfect and led to massive gains both resulting in tries.

[mildlyinterested]

Ed Byrne's mobility and skills are excellent. Offers a lot.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Loved Noel's performance last night, his footwork and passing is a joy to watch and he's clearly decided to take on more responsibility and it suits him at this stage in his career. I really don't want him to go but hope that he gets to play some big games before he does, deserves to play in a league knock out game. I know the Kings were terrible and he didn't do anything flashy but Ross Byrne was excellent again. I keep saying this but he's just so assured these, really think he should be in Rome tomorrow.

COB was excellent as well. When he first broke through I said that I thought he might be a slow burner but I have to say I didn't think that he had this kind of potential in him, thought he might get to a Dave Quinlan type level but now he looks like he'll be in Ireland squads after the World Cup. He has loads to work on as well so there's even scope to improve dramatically on what we're seeing now IMO.

HOS is improving all the time, his passing from the base was excellent and he was just far more confident and certain about what he was going to do. I still think he can be hesitant when he has to think on the hoof, and his passing can be very awkward when it's not the robotic action of just getting to the base and whipping it away, but I'm really encouraged by his progress this season and he too has the potential to improve an awful lot. Have to say I really liked Patterson's cameo, he looks to be more of a dominant nine that can run the game himself and he certainly has the pace and the handling to do it. He strikes me as being a really confident guy, I wouldn't be at all worried if he had to play a big game, whereas I'd still be a bit unsure about HOS.

Molony was so solid again, he's a such a valuable presence for us these days and it's great to see. You could pretty much copy and paste my comments about Noel, Molony, and Ross Byrne for every performance they've had this season, but that's a good thing!

My only real negative was Lowe, thought he was way off his usual standard.

[Xanthippe]

Just one point on James Lowe - he seemed to be ‘feeling’ his left arm from early in the match and was definitely ‘carrying’ it after Reid’s first try. Didn’t see anything early doors to suggest an injury but something definitely wasn’t right. Thought he was excellent with O’Sullivan though - seemed to be constantly talking/encouraging/coaching him.

[blockhead]

82 tries for Leinster now. Just 1 short of our total for last season in Conf B. Some goin.