HEC R1 Leinster v Treviso Sat 3.15 BT Sports

[tomthefan]

A scrappy performance tbh.
Game management wasn't great.
Just after we scored our BP, a random thought occurred that 3 converted tries would win it for Benetton and two would get them a LBP and a TBP.
Queue McGrath tap peno brain fart, Benetton controlled the next 13 mins, scored a try and but for some resolute defence it could have been more.
Had they a second try in that period then you'd wonder what might have happened.
The point of the exercise is that when you're in control play the %s, no heroics.
The peno in question was about ten meters from their 22.
Should have gone for the corner or even kick the points.
Instead McGrath to go for a tap about 7/8 meters behind the peno mark and didn't even make the gain line.
It's that sort of shyte that loses games.
As for the lady commentary, don't rate her particularly but she's way better than Ferris or Keyes (tg we don't have to listen to him anymore), has manners (doesn't interupt ad nauseum) and doesn't seem to have an agenda.
She plays a conservative game but hopefully as she gets more experience she'll start to add value.
As an aside please bring back Joanne Cantwell and send Daire packing, please, please.

Are Daire O Briain and Joanne Cantwell full timers at RTE and if so what do they do to punch in the time since RTE had so little going on in sport.

[Oldschool]

You must have a blindspot on "toxic masculinity" so.

Lots of it about.

Nothing wrong with masculinity.
Who decides that it's toxic is a different conversation altogether.
I know at least two women that come to mind where the phrase toxic feminity would be more than apt and funnily enough they get a much harder time from other women than from men.

[Ruckedtobits]

A scrappy performance tbh.
Game management wasn't great.
Just after we scored our BP, a random thought occurred that 3 converted tries would win it for Benetton and two would get them a LBP and a TBP.
Queue McGrath tap peno brain fart, Benetton controlled the next 13 mins, scored a try and but for some resolute defence it could have been more.
Had they a second try in that period then you'd wonder what might have happened.
The point of the exercise is that when you're in control play the %s, no heroics.
The peno in question was about ten meters from their 22.
Should have gone for the corner or even kick the points.
Instead McGrath decided to go for a tap about 7/8 meters behind the peno mark and didn't even make the gain line.
It's that sort of shyte that loses games.
As for the lady commentary, don't rate her particularly but she's way better than Ferris or Keyes (tg we don't have to listen to him anymore), has manners (doesn't interupt ad nauseum) and doesn't seem to have an agenda.
She plays a conservative game but hopefully as she gets more experience she'll start to add value.
As an aside please bring back Joanne Cantwell and send Daire packing, please, please.

+1 for all of the above, except I haven't yet heard Fiona Coughlan's colour commentary from yesterday.

Some add-ins:

Our "exits" from re-starts were very poor, despite the fact that they kicked to the same place:

Our Maul lacked authority and muscuality and needs a lot of work on tightness and lower body positions;

Our line-out was good almost excellent. However, against really big packs, and Lyon are a perfect example, we should vary our numbers from 3 through 6 in the lineout, and see how they cope with their forwards being split up, rather than be allowed travel together as 8 enforcers. We have better footballers up-front than most teams and we should use those skills;

Finally, when are going to figure out how best to use Larmour. He can beat most guys one-on-one in a phone box but only ever seems to get the ball with a swarm in front of him. Use him on wide (unpopulated) shortside with instructions to pass, every time he has beaten two players, so that he can stay "alive" to collect the return pass and score.

[Oldschoolsocks]

You must have a blindspot on "toxic masculinity" so.

Lots of it about.

Nothing wrong with masculinity.
Who decides that it's toxic is a different conversation altogether.
I know at least two women that come to mind where the phrase toxic feminity would be more than apt and funnily enough they get a much harder time from other women than from men.

Almost the textbook definition of whataboutery

[Oldschool]

You must have a blindspot on "toxic masculinity" so.

Lots of it about.

Nothing wrong with masculinity.
Who decides that it's toxic is a different conversation altogether.
I know at least two women that come to mind where the phrase toxic feminity would be more than apt and funnily enough they get a much harder time from other women than from men.

Almost the textbook definition of whataboutery

Or balance even.

[Twist]

You must have a blindspot on "toxic masculinity" so.

Lots of it about.

There isn’t. It’s a bullshit phrase used to lend a veneer of respectability to sexist generalisations

It’d be nice if sport could be one place where identity politics was shunned and we could just treat people as individuals

[blockhead]

When will ever get to the day when Women will be treated as equals. Critiqued as harshly and as unfairly as their male conterparts without a posse of white knights (disguised as feminists) charging in to rescue the damsel.
Fiona Coughan is a very experienced and knowledgable ex-rugby player but not the greatest co-comms.

[Twist]

As long as we’re talking about commentary, I was listening to newstalk while at the match and my god Liam Toland was poor. Andy Dunne wasn’t much better mind you

To give one example, when Keatley was lining up his last conversion Toland was trying to add up how many points they needed for an LBP. He decided that he should just boot away the conversion since “they need another converted try anyway”. They lingered on this point for a good 90 seconds and never once noticed that it would be a good idea to slot this conversion and take the pressure off the hypothetical next one

And if you’re wondering whether they realised that there were actually two BPs on offer (4 tries and LBP) then yes they eventually did. But took over two minutes of rambling for that particular train of thought to arrive at the station, and he still thought that Keatley should just sack off the conversion

It was teeth-grinding stuff

[meathman3]

Finally, when are going to figure out how best to use Larmour. He can beat most guys one-on-one in a phone box but only ever seems to get the ball with a swarm in front of him. Use him on wide (unpopulated) shortside with instructions to pass, every time he has beaten two players, so that he can stay "alive" to collect the return pass and score.[/quote]

The whole idea of putting him into FB was that he would have more space to work with and nit be reliant on others to give him the ball. Its not working. The enthusiasm to get rid of a true FB like Kearney in order to make space for him is a mistake. We should not be pigeon holing Larmour into a position that he is struggling in and sacrificing the outstanding security Kearney supplies. Let him play wing or centre.

[tomthefan]

Ryle and Fiona doing the connacht game currently and in fairness, it's Ryle who's doing my head, sounding like someone trying to squeeze one out. I wish he'd just shut up from time to time, every time he pauses he finishes on 'and' so we know there's more to come.
When he isn't describing what we can all see he's giving us potted biographies of every player. Currently for example the ref is talking and Ryle is speaking garbage over him. Did he get one of those packages you hear of to leave RTE? Because what's he doing going from head of sport to jobbing commentator?

[Jonny tight lips]

If Fiona wants to commentate she’s just as liable to be criticized as any commentator or pundit, that said few lads on here complaining about her just because she’s a woman or bringing her gender into the criticism.. that’s not on, shame on you. Even if a few lads are being w&%kers it doesn’t mean we need to hear all about all the problems women have in the world, this isint loose women or the blind boy podcast.

McGrath was awful yesterday, not only butchering the tap and go but constantly whinging to a ref who had no interest. He should of got ball into that scrum quickly instead of complaining, was whinging at the ref in that maul as the ball was taken off him and it just went on. Dooley was terrible when he came on too, we’re gonna seriously miss Jack this year. Thought we were starting to pull away before Sexton dropped that ball, sat on it and then Keatly got amazing distance from the pen and we went tight. Some really good performances and good to see Henshaw get a run. Looking forward to next week.

[hugonaut]

Haven't watched it back yet but first impressions were it was a reasonably satisfying performance giving the bedding in of some more key men.

First time we've beaten Benneton at home since 2016! (?)

I thought they were exceptionally cynical without the ball and really didn't add to the game as a spectical. The ref whistled them a lot but really needed more control of the game. Not an overly impressive performance from him. 2 really frustrating maul turnovers where they made no effort to legally defend it were lowlights for him.

Rare to see Johnny make that many breaks with the ball in hand. Loving the running game. Clearly blowing off some cobwebs!

I thought Max was great when he came on. Played like a man very annoyed to be left on the bench.

Highlight for me was our Defence on our own line. Kept them out for maybe 20 phases and they knocked on. Those moments are really satisfying.

Finally a shout out to the broadcast who robbed the 17500 people there the chance to witness Lowe's amazing skill to keep the ball in play off the penalty.

Treviso are a good side. Very well-coached, canny and physically strong. Obviously we have played bigger packs [Toulouse last year were absolutely massive and Saracens about as big] but those were big knock-out games where we were deep in the season and hugely motivated. This was a big side and we couldn't get much change out of them up front and particularly found them hard to get off the ball at ruck time.

With that said, fully half the starting pack – Kelleher, Porter, Ryan, Doris – are 23 or younger, and Kelleher and Doris are 21 year-olds starting in their first European games. That's a very young pack for this level of rugby. JVDF played well, becoming a more authoritative player in the side rather than just a role player. Max showed up well when he came in, got on the ball a lot and always looked pacy.

Dave Kearney frustrated me a little, and I'm generally somebody who sticks up for him and sees his worth. I think he does so many things technically well as a winger and plays unselfishly for the team, but he tends to play his least effective rugby in the opposition 22. Even with five tries under his belt before the end of November, he still looks unconfident as a finisher. He should have done much better off that cross kick.

Ringrose was superb and a joy to watch - elements of both Drico and Brenny Mullin in his play yesterday. And it's alway great to see Sexton play at the RDS. FOUR MORE YEARS!

[Oldschoolsocks]

When will ever get to the day when Women will be treated as equals. Critiqued as harshly and as unfairly as their male conterparts without a posse of white knights (disguised as feminists) charging in to rescue the damsel.
Fiona Coughan is a very experienced and knowledgable ex-rugby player but not the greatest co-comms.

That’s bollicks, the criticisms were her voice was to high pitched and she never played Heineken cup rugby

[CrookedIn]

When will ever get to the day when Women will be treated as equals. Critiqued as harshly and as unfairly as their male conterparts without a posse of white knights (disguised as feminists) charging in to rescue the damsel.
Fiona Coughan is a very experienced and knowledgable ex-rugby player but not the greatest co-comms.

That’s bollicks, the criticisms were her voice was to high pitched and she never played Heineken cup rugby

Well said. Sounds like George Hook got on to this thread

[blockhead]

When will ever get to the day when Women will be treated as equals. Critiqued as harshly and as unfairly as their male conterparts without a posse of white knights (disguised as feminists) charging in to rescue the damsel.
Fiona Coughan is a very experienced and knowledgable ex-rugby player but not the greatest co-comms.

That’s bollicks, the criticisms were her voice was to high pitched and she never played Heineken cup rugby

And you applauded somone else for criticising Ryle for being a swimmer, from Blackrock, with an annoying voice. Some other posters on here think that he "talks too much", y'know he is the commentator.
Arise Sir Knight.

[Oldschoolsocks]

When will ever get to the day when Women will be treated as equals. Critiqued as harshly and as unfairly as their male conterparts without a posse of white knights (disguised as feminists) charging in to rescue the damsel.
Fiona Coughan is a very experienced and knowledgable ex-rugby player but not the greatest co-comms.

That’s bollicks, the criticisms were her voice was to high pitched and she never played Heineken cup rugby

And you applauded somone else for criticising Ryle for being a swimmer, from Blackrock, with an annoying voice. Some other posters on here think that he "talks too much", y'know he is the commentator.
Arise Sir Knight.

Ryle Nugent is demonstrably lacking in rugby knowledge, unengaging and self appointed.

Beware anointing me lest I seek out your troll hole

[blockhead]

You're entitled to your opinion, Sir.

[tomthefan]

Commiserations socks but there's no comeback from checkmate.

[blockhead]

So none of the 7 Pro14 teams lost to a team from another league.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Commiserations socks but there's no comeback from checkmate.

Arguing with someone on here is like playing chess with a pigeon, they knock over the pieces, sh!t on the board and walk around as if they’ve won.