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Three teams at two wins apiece assuming a Toulon win in the Felix Mayol and Leinster... This is ****.
Had this been the scenario this time last year I'd have been completely irate but at the moment I'm disappointed but very positive about Leinster's future, assuming European rugby doesn't undergo drastic plastic surgery over the next four seasons. (Probably a much bigger assumption to make than my previous one)
My two main gripes with the three European matches we played are both the fault of Leo Cullen, and the other falls on Johnny Sexton, the two of them being the main reason for our exit which isn't necessarily the worst thing that could have happened to us. I'll get back to these.
As for today's match... I'm incredibly frustrated. We were given far more than a punchers chance there today and over the past seven seasons if a side gave a Leinster team a sniff they were forced to work incredibly hard to beat us, most didn't. This Leinster side weren't at the races though, they lacked confidence and had an outhalf who, despite being our worst player on the day, didn't trust all of his teammates and took too much on himself, failing to execute anything he tried. (That's right, this is an aforementioned gripe) Sexton returned to his old side, expected to completely run the show and for everything to be the same as it had been two years previously, rugby doesn't work like that and he showed himself to be petulant and arrogant in his play, throwing skips that weren't needed and firing bad passes at his team-mates and giving out to everyone else. It wasn't only today either his decision to take a penalty kick he was never going to make against Bath resulting in the loss of possession and the game was a completer lack of trust in the other players from him, and possibly Isa but you don't take a kick on if you don't have the legs and Johnny has never had that distance. The result of today's Sexton ****show? The two pivotal and match winning moments in the game were a result of his mistakes and they were totally avoidable. A hard earned penalty in an easy position to go ahead was missed before he ever kicked it, his mind wasn't in it, cue Toulon regaining posession and field position and applying pressure forcing a yellow card, 6 points. Then when we were 7 points down with nice possession and field position he throws what felt like his 206th bad pass into touch, strong maul, nice field position, 3 points and the game.
(Spoiler: This Paragraph contains gripe number 2) Why the **** was he kept on? I can understand not subbing him at half-time but if after 55 minutes a player hasn't played himself into a game he's not going to, we have a 10 on the bench who has proven himself to be reasonably handy at winning rugby matches and French teams aren't exactly his weakness so why wasn't he used when we were still very much in the game? Naive coaching, take note and learn from it Cullen, you've lost a match, a second chance in Europe and probably your very talented reserve number 10 because of this.
The other glaringly obvious negative was our breakdown. Josh Van der Flier was taught a lesson on his first European start, he's a good player and has a future in this team but by God he needs to be quicker to the breakdown as a 7, especially when Steffon Armitage doesn't need to release a player after tackling them and is allowed to flop his belly down on the player he's forcing the penalty or turnover from. Rhys Ruddock was much the same but where Van der Flier has youth and inexperience as an excuse, Ruddock does not.
This is all the more disappointing because between our flankers and Johnny Sexton we threw away at playing a very good game of rugby because we were firing elsewhere. The defence was top notch barring the very end, 5 points, and our poor maul defence which resulted in 10 points for Toulon. Two bad throws took away from a line-out that looked very effective, our starting front-five had the up in the scrum and provided good go-forward ball when possible, our centres made their 'world beaters' look like the pairing lacking the skill-set for this level which is what they should have been made look, and our back three contained theirs while doing well when they had chances to attack. Had we not had the three worst players on the pitch, and worst by some distance because they didn't perform like they should have, that game would have been right in the balance and when you add the fact that Sexton was brought back to be the best 10 in the competition, had he played to 75% of his ability we would have won.
As for the "campaign" as a whole? We never made the step up from pro 12 rugby to Heineken Cup, it's a different level and our results, compared to the league positions of the other sides, show that we weren't at the races. Hammered at home by the 2nd worst domestically positioned side followed by a somewhat improved performance but not improved enough resulting in a small defeat away to the worst. Going to the best side in the group we shouldn't have had a chance but they failed to make the European jump too, home advantage and their overall better quality proved enough to beat us though. Cullen made another mistake here too, the selection against Wasps was awful. Four players out of position against a very talented backline showed terrible selection policy, I hoped it was a once off but he showed it again today. Cullen plays better rugby than MO'C, he has better pro 12 performances and less players look stale under him but I hope to God he's not a Lancaster in the way he can't pick a team, it was the reason we went out so timidly this year and it can't continue. His team has potential, he's proving he can do it at pro 12 level without a RWC hanging over him, all he needs is to learn from his selection mistakes and make the step up to perform in Europe. The next three European games should be looking forward to next season, no Te'o and a team with a few fresh faces, three wins should be the goal.
Had this been the scenario this time last year I'd have been completely irate but at the moment I'm disappointed but very positive about Leinster's future, assuming European rugby doesn't undergo drastic plastic surgery over the next four seasons. (Probably a much bigger assumption to make than my previous one)
My two main gripes with the three European matches we played are both the fault of Leo Cullen, and the other falls on Johnny Sexton, the two of them being the main reason for our exit which isn't necessarily the worst thing that could have happened to us. I'll get back to these.
As for today's match... I'm incredibly frustrated. We were given far more than a punchers chance there today and over the past seven seasons if a side gave a Leinster team a sniff they were forced to work incredibly hard to beat us, most didn't. This Leinster side weren't at the races though, they lacked confidence and had an outhalf who, despite being our worst player on the day, didn't trust all of his teammates and took too much on himself, failing to execute anything he tried. (That's right, this is an aforementioned gripe) Sexton returned to his old side, expected to completely run the show and for everything to be the same as it had been two years previously, rugby doesn't work like that and he showed himself to be petulant and arrogant in his play, throwing skips that weren't needed and firing bad passes at his team-mates and giving out to everyone else. It wasn't only today either his decision to take a penalty kick he was never going to make against Bath resulting in the loss of possession and the game was a completer lack of trust in the other players from him, and possibly Isa but you don't take a kick on if you don't have the legs and Johnny has never had that distance. The result of today's Sexton ****show? The two pivotal and match winning moments in the game were a result of his mistakes and they were totally avoidable. A hard earned penalty in an easy position to go ahead was missed before he ever kicked it, his mind wasn't in it, cue Toulon regaining posession and field position and applying pressure forcing a yellow card, 6 points. Then when we were 7 points down with nice possession and field position he throws what felt like his 206th bad pass into touch, strong maul, nice field position, 3 points and the game.
(Spoiler: This Paragraph contains gripe number 2) Why the **** was he kept on? I can understand not subbing him at half-time but if after 55 minutes a player hasn't played himself into a game he's not going to, we have a 10 on the bench who has proven himself to be reasonably handy at winning rugby matches and French teams aren't exactly his weakness so why wasn't he used when we were still very much in the game? Naive coaching, take note and learn from it Cullen, you've lost a match, a second chance in Europe and probably your very talented reserve number 10 because of this.
The other glaringly obvious negative was our breakdown. Josh Van der Flier was taught a lesson on his first European start, he's a good player and has a future in this team but by God he needs to be quicker to the breakdown as a 7, especially when Steffon Armitage doesn't need to release a player after tackling them and is allowed to flop his belly down on the player he's forcing the penalty or turnover from. Rhys Ruddock was much the same but where Van der Flier has youth and inexperience as an excuse, Ruddock does not.
This is all the more disappointing because between our flankers and Johnny Sexton we threw away at playing a very good game of rugby because we were firing elsewhere. The defence was top notch barring the very end, 5 points, and our poor maul defence which resulted in 10 points for Toulon. Two bad throws took away from a line-out that looked very effective, our starting front-five had the up in the scrum and provided good go-forward ball when possible, our centres made their 'world beaters' look like the pairing lacking the skill-set for this level which is what they should have been made look, and our back three contained theirs while doing well when they had chances to attack. Had we not had the three worst players on the pitch, and worst by some distance because they didn't perform like they should have, that game would have been right in the balance and when you add the fact that Sexton was brought back to be the best 10 in the competition, had he played to 75% of his ability we would have won.
As for the "campaign" as a whole? We never made the step up from pro 12 rugby to Heineken Cup, it's a different level and our results, compared to the league positions of the other sides, show that we weren't at the races. Hammered at home by the 2nd worst domestically positioned side followed by a somewhat improved performance but not improved enough resulting in a small defeat away to the worst. Going to the best side in the group we shouldn't have had a chance but they failed to make the European jump too, home advantage and their overall better quality proved enough to beat us though. Cullen made another mistake here too, the selection against Wasps was awful. Four players out of position against a very talented backline showed terrible selection policy, I hoped it was a once off but he showed it again today. Cullen plays better rugby than MO'C, he has better pro 12 performances and less players look stale under him but I hope to God he's not a Lancaster in the way he can't pick a team, it was the reason we went out so timidly this year and it can't continue. His team has potential, he's proving he can do it at pro 12 level without a RWC hanging over him, all he needs is to learn from his selection mistakes and make the step up to perform in Europe. The next three European games should be looking forward to next season, no Te'o and a team with a few fresh faces, three wins should be the goal.
