31 May 2024; Jimmy O’Brien of Leinster scores his side’s fifth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Connacht at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
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🏉 Early scores 🏉 Sam composure 🏉 TYVM RR,RM,EB,RDS 🏉 BP eventually 🏉 Tricky path ahead
Connacht seemed way off the pace, it was clear early on so much was going wrong for them.
Ruddock was immense he put everything into that game it was brilliant. Maloney and Byrne were also brilliant and gave excellent performances for their last games. I thought Ala’alatoa was unlucky for his card, yes he was high and he did hit Blades head, I’m not sure he hit it as hard as Blades reaction but that’s my bias(probably?). You could see though he wanted to out in a good shift.
Anyone doubting Leinster’s strength in depth can see in this game why it’s often quoted as being brilliant, no other club could make 14 changes and have a performance as strong as that. Keeping so many players involved and happy at the club is mind blowingly difficult, yet Leo does it year after year.
There was lots of things to like about that game even though 4 of the stalwarts are moving on & one of our backline was pretty jittery it was a pretty excellent performance from the other 19.
Chris McDonnell
Great performance from lots of the lads. Showed how awful last week’s selection was. Jenkins ahead of Molony, no Jimmy o brien , frawley just a lovely attacking player.foley I’d just miles better than mcgrath. Anyways hopefully ruddock and Molony gets to play again for us.
Cuan Mulligan
Felt Sam P had a great game, offered more options than other 10s in the squad. Was integral to a few of the tries; tried things, mixed it up. Should be where we invest and give him as much game time as possible. Might need some extra protein over the summer to bulk up
William Andrew
It was a good indicator of how valuable players like Ross, Max Ed and Ruddock are to Leinster. They provide the steel through a season.
Form was also on display, in some of the younger players
Leinster 33 Connacht 7
Overpowered & outplayed for long stretches Too many compound errors again Individual sparks in there but really not good enough The 2nd half showed improvement but lacked any kind of killer edge, any attack lost shape & defence was guts & fight#LEIvCON
18 May 2024; Charlie Ngatai of Leinster evades the tackle of Rob Herring of Ulster on his way to scoring his side’s first try during the United Rugby Championship match between Ulster and Leinster at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Whoever made the call to kick to the line when we are 1 point ahead with 10 minutes to go and straight in front of the posts probably cost us the chance to top the table. A win and we were top and had it totally in our own hands but for sone reason I still can’t fathom we decided to completely f**k it up. Totally sickened right now. Not to take anything away from Ulster who completely deserved the victory tonight but its very rarely you can be so outplayed and still have the chance to come away with a win. We need to see a completely different mindset from Leinster next weekend if we are finally going to get our hands on star number 5.
William Andrew
A dreadful lack of nous to lose that game. Continually kicking the ball away with 5 mins on the clock hoping to make ten meters is not great. A 30 meter through kick to force a Ulster line out in their 22 would have burned a min at least. Plus they are now in danger of conceding a penalty.
Several generations of former Leinster 10s and 9s must be shaking their heads.
Berchmans Gannon
From the sideline the box kicking is not the way to go.
Chasing a bonus point ahead of a win is questionable.
Shit happens! I will still support Leinster without the need for a slaughter of Managment.
Kevin Kelehan
Decent game that could have gone either way, the losing bonus point will get Leinster at least a home QF, the win will guarantee Ulster top tier cup rugby next season.
Colin Mehigan
Another uninspiring performance if I’m honest….our high profile coaching ticket need to rethink strategy
Very expensive defeat for Leinster. Terrible game management, can’t believe they didn’t take three with a kick under the posts when they were struggling to convert from close in. And an intercept try! Tear your hair out stuff.
Weird game. Should have been miles back by half time, bur should have won it comfortably in the second. That's not just top spot but also quite possibly a home semi-final gone unless Sharks and Ulster do us a favour next week. #ULSvLEI
Last night's result was disappointing & there were aspects of Leinster's play which weren't good enough over the 80.
But it was always going to be a tight game, & was won by a single kick. Let's give Ulster some credit too, imperfect but strong in patches, got it done.
Cant complain with result, but it still was there to be won at the end and clinical finishing we had shown with limited possession disappeared in final qtr. We didnt manage subs well either IMO. Credit to Ulster, Cooney immense, back row won breakdown battle #ULSvLEI
11 May 2024; Jordan Larmour of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ospreys at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
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Frawley looked very comfortable when he went to 10. Another very accomplished game for him. Just wished he got more game time there! Lots still to work on.
Peter Tracey
O’Brien looked sharp and has some serious pace. JGP and Frawley really sped the game up when they played together.
Frankie Taylor
Buzzing. Jimmy was incredible
David White
The spies from Toulouse in the stands leant nothing coz Ospreys were so poor
Tony Doyle
Good win and a great second half by Leinster
Came out from break strong and never looked back. Managed the game really well, kept them pinned back. JOB deserved PotM but Larmour another contender, JVDF in the pack too. Interesting to see selection next week but very happy for now.#LEIvOSP
LEINSTER : 15. Ciarán Frawley 14. Jordan Larmour 13. Jamie Osborne 12. Robbie Henshaw 11. Jimmy O’Brien 10. Ross Byrne 9. Luke McGrath
1. Andrew Porter 2. Rónan Kelleher 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Ross Molony 5. Jason Jenkins 6. Ryan Baird 7. Will Connors 8. Caelan Doris (c)
16. Dan Sheehan 17. Michael Milne 18. Thomas Clarkson 19. Jack Conan 20. Josh van der Flier 21. Jamison Gibson-Park 22. Charlie Ngatai 23. Tommy O’Brien
OSPREYS : 15. Max Nagy 14. Luke Morgan 13. Owen Watkin 12. Keiran Williams 11. Keelan Giles 10. Dan Edwards 9. Reuben Morgan-Williams
1. Nicky Smith 2. Dewi Lake 3. Rhys Henry 4. James Ratti 5. Huw Sutton 6. Harri Deaves 7. Justin Tipuric (c) 8. Morgan Morris
16. Sam Parry 17. Gareth Thomas 18. Tom Botha 19. Victor Sekekete 20. Jac Morgan 21. Luke Davies 22. Jack Walsh 23. Evardi Boshoff
Great to see Gus McCarthy step up, a steep learning curve for the emerging squad members, far from ideal to have back to back away games in South Africa when squad rotation is at its peak. The lads showed decent fight in the third quarter but the errors in the first half were mostly preventable.
Greg Kelly
*Copy and Paste last week’s comments*
On the bright side our young lads dominated the 3rd quarter but the inexperience and inaccuracies were evident. They’ll get better and they’ll learn from this. However if we end up trophyless again this season I’m not sure these “kids school trips” to SA will not cut the mustard.
In a wider sense I don’t like where the URC is going. Some of the fixure scheduling is…suspicious. I think the SA franchises are gaining more than they add to it and teams being forced by pragmatism, timing or necessity to give up 2 games and 10 points undermines true competition.
Richard Kennedy
A big rethink needed on sending our 2nd/3rd string down to get pummelled in by hardened pros in SA. Some of those young players simply aren’t ready for that level yet
Warren Doyle
Much as expected. Training ground stuff didn’t work in the heat of battle. Very little inivotive thinking once that failed. Experience – yes. Knowledge – ?. Could be critical but players don’t need that.
No suprise there, really. Cullen insists on bringing development sides to SA, Leinster had a brief spell in 2nd half on top, then the YC. But well-managed by Stormers, especially Mani's time wasting. Piardi awful for both teams tbf.
20 April 2024; Charlie Ngatai of Leinster, supported by teammate Scott Penny, is tackled by PJ Botha of Emirates Lions during the United Rugby Championship match between Emirates Lions and Leinster at Emirates Airline Park in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
That was embarrassing. Performance was naive and inaccurate. Some of that is on the young lads not performing individually, but I think a major part is some of the older lads we’d hope to step up and lead in those circumstances failed to do so.
Greg Kelly
We were playing touch rugby in defence. If you are one of the teams fighting for 4th-8th you’d be excused for asking why Leinster don’t serve up 5 points away to you too?🤷♂️ We started dreadfully and then when we found a rythem we were woefully inaccurate.
Getting beaten like that is acceptable if we can walk away with silverware at the end. If not then questions need to be asked.
Éamonn Rogers
Honestly it was a game with little at stake played at 1700m (for context nearly 700m higher than Carrountoohil) I’d see it as nothing more than a blooding exercise/fixture we are obliged to fulfil. The stats show that there were a lot of positive elements. We (thankfully) don’t have the luxury of sending our primary team down like our southern cousins. Overall I’d say we could have done better but not the end of the world
Kevin Kelehan
A lot of players will be very disappointed with their performance, got the chance to shine and made unforced errors, hopefully a big improvement next week.
William Andrew
Looked like an unfocused Leinster. Distracted by the hype of this last week, etc etc. Everyone who has ever played knows you have to be dialed in 100% or you will struggle.
Lions were very sharp and handled the blitz defence with pace and good passing. Northampton are going to be all over this video.
A wake up call, last season we were great and not great for about the last three minutes in two games. 😢
A bad, bad day at the office for the boys in blue.
Lions were great value for the win after a flyer of a start. Making a great fist of the run to the final 8.
Congrats @Ringo26, see you at Lansdowne Road next season, or maybe even in the knockouts…👀#LIOvLEI
Just not good enough at all from #leinster – some fantastic talent on the park but sloppy, second at breakdowns and inaccurate overall. Congrats #lions but Leinster have some hard internal chats ahead after that. #LIOvLEI
No polishing that turd!!! Credit to Lions very clinical. We pinched a couple of tries but never looked like putting a real dent in that bad start. Retreat, regroup, and come back strong in Cape Town.#LIOvLEI
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 