5 October 2024; Ciarán Frawley of Leinster beats the tackle of Tommaso Menoncello of Benetton on the way to scoring his side’s second try during the United Rugby Championship match between Benetton and Leinster at Stadio Monigo in Treviso, Italy. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Weird one that. Obviously happy with 5 points away at Benetton. We were brilliant for half an hour. Defensively exceptional for the whole game. But it's a concern how much our attack faded after that opening blitz. #BENvLEI
27 September 2024; Cian Healy of Leinster after the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Dragons at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Whenever Ross Byrne wears 10 custard skins worldwide breath a sigh of relief.
Leinster looked disjointed in the first 40. Could be early season problems but to be fair I think the Dragons were better than they have been in recent years. They knew they were going to end up on the end of 30-50 before they travelled but they stuck in and really lived off their big moments in the opening half. I think they’ll beat a few teams this year and I wouldn’t fancy Newport on a wet and windy night in the winter.
Things looked a little cleaner when Joe and Josh came in.
Deegan had another good showing and really I have to wonder what he’s still doing here. He should have gone last year and quite frankly he is squandering his talent at Leinster.
Gavin Hegarty
2/6 for Byrne from the Tee simply isn’t good enough. He was nervy and it showed.
Jimmy OBrien looked electric every time he got the ball.
We now have 3 world class hookers in Sheehan, Kelliher and Gus, a great problem to have. Gus’ lineouts were excellent and he was everywhere. Lineout dropped when Barron came on, something he needs to work on if he wants any sort of a look in.
The way osbourne is going Hugo might have a huge challenge ahead of him when he comes back.
Larmour has bulked up but I think he’s sacrificed fitness as a result, he seemed tired after 30 minutes.
Can’t help but feel a bad dragons team brought us down to their level, we should have topped 60 tonight.
Dave Murray
Wasn’t even any near misses from the tee, they were all terrible kicks. Ross has given us good service over the years, but we won’t be winning many/any major trophies with himself at 10 imo. Need to be investing in Frawley/Prendergast at 10, they’ll make us play a lot better.
Dave Ryle
I thought Osborne was more deserving of POTM.
Turner had a good game as well.
Upside- I had 6 pints of stout on a Friday night Downside – performance was fairly meh Upside- a wins a win Downside its getting cold Upside – life could be worse#LEIVDRA
Leinster were average for stretches yesterday and Ross left his kicking boots at home but some of the negativity seems OTT to me (and does a disservice to Dragons who played pretty well). Ultimately it's a comfortable win, job done, 10 points from our opening 10.#LEIvDRA
20 September 2024; Jamison Gibson-Park of Leinster scores his side’s fourth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Edinburgh and Leinster at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
JGP’s try was the catalyst that delivered that burst of scores that changed the game, lucky the Edinburgh butchered their kicks 5 minutes out but on balance a decent start to the season that needs to deliver silverware
Chris McDonnell
We handed over 5 tries to the second worst attack in the league. If we don’t send him back to SA it’d going to get worse. Good to see some of the attack and Sam and Charlie were very good.
Gavin Hegarty
First game, away, mainly young team v full Edinburgh. A lot of positives. Sam was sublime, techtor could be a great 12 with his new bulk.
Scott Penny is relentless.
Can we talk about Byrne’s reaction to his yellow? Pathetic and I think he’ll get scolded for it in the review.
William Andrew
Tector, was competent at 12, that might be a better fit for him considering the glut at 10. Prendergast was very effective too. Nicely timed passing constantly. Defence a bit leaky, but a good start
David Lawlor
Nice to banish the opening game yips we seem to have been suffering from. A joy to watch a Leinster 10 take the ball to the line and his passing was sublime too. The last minute try makes it seem closer than it really was and while it’s disappointing to concede five tries I think the defence will improve as the season goes on. Roll on Friday in the Aviva!
5pts away from home in a season opener. I'll take it.
Poor finish handing over the 2nd point but happy with the 5 on our end, responded well to early 2nd half try, JGP superb, final qtr defence impressive until 80th min, cant ask for much more away from home to open the season. #EDIvLEI
One of the worst performances I’ve seen from South Africa in the first half and one of the worst performances I’ve seen from Ireland in the second. officials tried to screw us again but incredible finish
Dickson made quite a few 50-50 calls that always seemed to go in favour of the home team. From an Irish point of view, it felt almost endless.
But this happens in every game to every away team, so I don’t think it’s any particular conspiracy, it’s just the nature of sport!
Kevin Kelehan
Delighted Frawley got the chance to exorcise the ghost of Tottenham, ugly game but Farrell has built some team, 6 first choice players missing today, 5 of them in the back line and still got it done. Farrell is 80:20 win rate, Boks are 20:80 against the green machine in recent years!!
Sean MacDonnchadha
Very lucky I feel. Springboks only able to force penalties. We should’ve buried them in the first half with the energy, territory and possession we had. All the same, some balls from frawley
Paul Smith
Despite SA cheating and a horrendous performance by Dickinson, Ireland fully deserved the win and I’m absolutely delighted for Frawley who buried the memories of the Champions Cup last minute not once but twice with 2 superb drop goals.
John Willie Conroy
Osborne was unbelievable fair play to Andy Farrell for blooding. Questions need to be asked regarding Frawly not being picked at 10 at Leinster he’s a quality ball player and is head and shoulders above the Byrne brothers.
Brian Corr
So happy, what Irish team in the past could lose their starting scrum half, starting fullback, starting hooker and go to the world champions and get a result. 8 years since they’ve lost in Durban.
Delighted for Frawley to get the chance to make such a huge impact with two fantastic drop goals.
It’s said that tries win matches and that was the difference today
Take a bow Ciaran Frawley. Two outstanding kicks in the clutch. And we deserved it too. Again we were making mistakes, again SA were getting points but we stayed with them AND kept them tryless. What a way to end the season. Very happy out. #RSAvIRE
They got the rub of the green, big time, but we probably didn’t do enough.
Reasonably confident we can win 2nd if “end of season-itis” doesn’t kick in.
Gav Heg
If it was reversed, we won and the ref treated SA like he did us, rassie would release a two hour analysis slating him. The officiating simply wasn’t good enough at this level. like how can they review and disallow Lowes try but not notice the neck roll on Kelleher? Penalties were given for far less in NZ v Eng. And how was Casey stretchered off without any review from Pearse? Nonsensical and inconsistent
Greg Kelly
Is the call by the TMO to disallow Lowes try wrong in law? No…
Is the game in an absolute state if this is where it is going? Absolutely!
You can be guaranteed that in the lead up to all the tries today there were infringements but the TMO didn’t come back to those?
Even after the turnover Lowe beats 3 defenders to score so the manner of the turnover is not the material issue. It’s a great individual try called back for a debatable TMO intervention. Furthermore once the TMO comes in to disallow the try he must commit 100% to catching EVERY breakdown infringement from there. What if he let’s one go and 3 phases later there’s a kickable penalty awarded to the offending team? Does he call the referee back?
PSDT is off his feet in the field of play when he holds up Doris’ grounding attempt. By the letter of the law it’s an illegal intervention. It happens in all games and is never penalised but if we are going into the detail we did for the Lowe try then it’s another incidence of a player off feet affecting the play and consistency demands it’s flagged by the TMO.
If this is where we’re going it’s going to be a sh1t show.
Kevin Kelehan
Half back pairing was not disrupted, got reasonable parity at the breakdown. Unlucky with a few ref decisions that were 50:50 calls, particular Kelliher being driven back. Lots of industry and effort but also lots of shooting themselves in the foot. The series remains alive at only 7 points down, that is very encouraging, dust themselves down and be more clinical next week.
Sean MacDonnchadha
Have to look inward and be honest. Otherwise we’re only fooling ourselves again. Lineout and scrum came back to bite us after being highlighted as potential weaknesses. Backline stuttering for most of the game and no real director at 9/10. Felt like we were having to react to everything instead of dictating play. Dorris and Bundee tireless efforts. Ryan and Baird impacted well off the bench – only ones who did really. Needing Porter and Furlong to do a full 80 if possible is a massive system failure. Boks can’t wait to unleash their bench, if we’re honest we fear what will happen when we do.
Cuan Mulligan
In the first half, Kolisi was tackled, in the breakdown the ball is coming back to us and he sweeps the ball back with his hand.. not hard to see yet no tmo call. It felt like they were going out of their way to not give us a call
James Lowe had a very good game overall.
Did plenty right.
Had every right to try and keep the touch kick alive.
Also would have been risky to let that restart bounce.
This is hardly some new insight but a key issue with some of Ireland (and Leinster's) performances recently: everyone just looks exhausted. Some of these guys have been playing rugby without more than a few weeks off now for two years, and it just shows.
Hell of a test match. The fact these 46 players give a spectacle like that after 12 months of rugby is outstanding. Fine margins but congrats to the Springboks. Deserved winners in the end . Ireland went down swinging. Super match 👏 #RSAvIRE
So so good at times, but also so so poor at other, crucial times. Silly mistakes, silly penalties. Boks made errors too and we def didnt have rub of the green with TMO but the 7 pts we fell short by were on us. Be tough to pick it up for next week but try we must. #RSAvIRE
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 