[2018/19 Heineken Cup] Round : Pool (12&13/10/2018)

[Ragey Erasmus]

Well that's Wasps and Bath likely out of the competition now.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Great result for Toulouse. If they win at the Ricoh they should go through, they should win their home games v Bath and Wasps.

 

[Which Tyler]

Well that's Wasps and Bath likely out of the competition now.

To be fair, it was always going to be Leinster as winner, with Toulouse or Wasps likely not doing enough in second place

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

To be fair, it was always going to be Leinster as winner, with Toulouse or Wasps likely not doing enough in second place

True but having 2 games we could have won and threw both away is just poor, Bath have done this too many times.

 

[Which Tyler]

Meh.
My expectations were set low as i thought we'd need luck to acheive 3rd in the group.

Last week we shoulda won, we were simply the better team.
This week I can't argue that either team had any actual control of the game at any time, a draw really does seem a fair result.
Last week isn't he one I'm sorry about. Ellis was braindead, Kaino and Pointrup should both seen red; Rhys shouldn't be been given the kicking tee. Any one of those factors and we'd have been out of sight IMO, let alone Freddie's celebration of the match stopping early

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Have a match today so won't get to watch live. Hope Tomane has a great game, I've seen him get awful stick from "fans" elsewhere on the net who obviously have short memories or haven't been around too long hecabec players like Isa, Felipe and Lowe, to a lesser extent, all had less than inspired starts to their Ster career.

 

[munstermuffin]

Have a match today so won't get to watch live. Hope Tomane has a great game, I've seen him get awful stick from "fans" elsewhere on the net who obviously have short memories or haven't been around too long hecabec players like Isa, Felipe and Lowe, to a lesser extent, all had less than inspired starts to their Ster career.

Tomane is serving his exact purpose quiet well I thought. A backup player with huge experience and high calibre ability who is versatile and a great bench option.
His true worth will be next month and in the spring.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Kolbe's stepping is just nuts,
He's like when Yoda whipped out a lightsaber and started bouncing around the place in the prequels

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Sexton gonna end up in the bin today for mouthing off at the officials

 

[Which Tyler]

Sexton gonna end up in the bin today for mouthing off at the officials

Well, I suppose he had to learn SOMETHING from Farrell on the Lions tour!

 

[TommiG88]

Didn't expect that.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Good win for Toulouse, completely written off before hand (and probably rightly so) and pulled out all the stops - missing a few big players as well.



Tomane feels like such a waste of a non-Irish spot for Leinster, he's average and was poor today. Couple of penalties and was bad on Toulouse's first try - surely there was an academy kid or an Irish qualified guy they could root out from somewhere in the UK (or SH) that they could've brought in for less money?

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

That was a great game. Could have gone either way. Congrats to Toulouse on the win.

 

[Leinster Fan]

Tomane feels like such a waste of a non-Irish spot for Leinster, he's average and was poor today. Couple of penalties and was bad on Toulouse's first try - surely there was an academy kid or an Irish qualified guy they could root out from somewhere in the UK (or SH) that they could've brought in for less money?

I think versatility is a big plus as well as big game experience. If it was at home they'd probably have trusted O'Loughlin to start but McFadden and Kearney (the so-called 'reliables') being injured made picking him inevitable. I'm yet to be convinced tbh but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work out. He'll be valuable when half the squad is with Ireland in any case.

Losing isn't the end of the world, only a two point gap between us and them and we've still got the home game. I'd still be confident of a home qf.

 

[Leinster Fan]

Congrats Toulouse, great performance from them. Luke McGrath will be kicking himself and he probably hasn't done his Ireland chances any good but sure. I might have JGP involved instead of having Fardy on the bench because it's obvious that Cullen doesn't trust McCarthy. It's good just to dial down the hype a bit in any case cause it was getting OTT.

James Ryan is a beast. He'll be the best player in Ireland by the world cup no joke. He's unfairly good.

 

[FrenchFan]

Cracking game. This is what the HCup is about!

My picks are Selevasio Tolofua still only 21 yo at 8. And Julien Marchand our 23 yo captain. With Castet 22, Placines 24, Verhague 22 they're the youngest pack I've seen in a long time. Still Missing a few first starters (Kaino, Pointud, Mermoz) and Dupont playing out of position all 2nd half.

Time to start Dupont and N'Tamack at 9 and 10 before the next round.
-----

And the EPCR muppets can try weaken us all they want with their suspensions. They're only firing on their own ambulance

 

[Leinster Fan]

Cracking game. This is what the HCup is about!

My picks are Selevasio Tolofua still only 21 yo at 8. And Julien Marchand our 23 yo captain. With Castet 22, Placines 24, Verhague 22 they're the youngest pack I've seen in a long time. Still Missing a few first starters (Kaino, Pointud, Mermoz) and Dupont playing out of position all 2nd half.

Time to start Dupont and N'Tamack at 9 and 10 before the next round.
-----

And the EPCR muppets can try weaken us all they want with their suspensions. They're only firing on their own ambulance

Toulouse have got a really good team right now. I thought they weren't being given enough of a chance before the game. I'd back both teams to make the qfs right now.

Curious about starting N'Tamack at 12 though. Holmes is decent but he doesn't seem to be anything special while it's obvious that N'Tamack is a special talent. Are they going to persist with Holmes or are we likely to see N'Tamack at 10?

Anyway, great game. I'm not even annoyed about losing because it was obviously a case of Toulouse playing really well rather than poor by us. Some great attacking rugby on show.

 

[FrenchFan]

yeah Romain N'Tamack is very versatile. He's played 10 and 12 with France U20. He's also played 9 last season in T14 and Challenge. Think his best pos is def 10 because he sees the game. We shud see him again at 10.

One reason they've moved him to 12 is we lost our 2 centres (Pierre Fouyssac, Théo Belan) very early in the season. Don't forget Mermoz was also out. That's 3 centres missing. This was believe it or not quite a rejigged Toulouse side. Guitoune is a winger but did fine at centre today. Bézy and Holmes have done the business up to now but with Dupont back I'd like to see how the Dupont-Tamack pair gets on.

Early days in a long season ...

I like the way we didn't take the 3 pts and went for more with a kick into touch. Shows the state of mind. Think any side against this Leinster team would have taken the 3 pt esp. in a tight game.
Leinster stormed back into it with 2 tries in 15 minutes. They looked ominous. 1 pt win is as close as it gets. But Mola and his staff need a big boost with all the nay-sayers and the anti-Toulouse crowd in T14. The biggest boost is for the young French guys on the team. Didn't think youngsters like Tolofua Marchand Castets Verhaeghe would step up like they did.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Hell of a game. Congrats Toulouse, really had their homework done and took their chances to put us under huge pressure.

I was a bit complacent after last week but had this marked down as the possible loss in the pool when it was announced, I'm ridiculously afraid of what N'Tamack will become, he's already a class class act. A bit of a wake up call for us, we were always going to miss Kearney but Larmour was a bit of a disaster at 15, McGrath was the same and by adding Toner to the list of underperformers didn't help. Toulouse blitzing and marking Ringrose out of the game was just about the perfect way to defend us and it nullified our backs while they kept mixing it up in attack to cause problems and keep territory.

Positives were SOB looking really really good (That penalty against him on 75 was a dreadful call but more on Barnes after this) he'll start against NZ fingers crossed, it was Conan's best performance in a big game in my memory and 1-4 in France is never to be scoffed at.

Barnes then. I don't think he was bad, it was just an odd performance, bar the aforementioned penalty I can't think of any howlers but he missed SOB knocking the ball on and a Leinster player going at it from what was the an offside position, the result was a scrum to Leinster when it should have been a TLS penalty. He also was inconsistent on forward passes throughout the game as well. The touchies definitely didn't help him, they seemed a tad incompetent. It didn't affect the match result but I felt that there were a few 3-5 minute periods in the match that felt a wee bit disjointed or something.

Edit: If Leinster were to lose to anyone in this year's competition I'm glad for it to be Toulouse. As long as this is the last til next year!

 

[Leinster Fan]

For all the moaning about refs over the last few weeks, I thought Barnes had a good game today. I used not to like him but he's really improved over the last few years.

Toulouse got written off before the game a bit much I thought. They've got enough youth and talent to see a trophy over the next few years I think. Definitely a team back on the way up in any event.

All the hype disguised the fact that we do have some fairly obvious weaknesses, scrumhalf being the most obvious one. Luke is good but nothing brilliant, and the fact that we weren't willing to bring McCarthy on until the very end even though Luke was playing badly. There's a lack of depth in the backs as well. Six minutes of the bench for 21-23 combined speaks for itself. I'm not saying it's any worse than in other teams but it's not great. We're not particularly great in the back 3 or hooker.

Not worth getting worked up about though. Lost a great game away to an excellent team. Not the end of the world and well done to Toulouse.