Edinburgh v Leinster

[An Tarbh]

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Edinburgh v Leinster

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A bonus point win for Leinster will be them officially crowned Magners League champions on Friday regardless of what the other teams do, Munster will still be able to finish level on points with Leinster but won't have enough match wins to overtake them. Should Cardiff and Munster both lose then Leinster will also be crowned champions regardless of their result.

Regarding the match Brian O'Driscoll is back in the squad, a decision on his availability will be made tomorrow afternoon.

Edinburgh are hoping to have Nick Da Luca back for the clash.

So will Leinster get the job done themselves or be relying on favours elsewhere against their bogey side???

 

[lineens weegie army]

heres hoping they can do the job at Murrayfield and help Glasgow out.

Will Edinburgh ever manage to keep up the good performances post 6 Nations though?

(Oh, and no offence, but heres also hoping Godman has a nightmare evening against the Argentine playmaker much of Scotland wants him to play against in the summer tests!)

 

[An Tarbh]

Mike Blair misses out with a head injury so Greig Laidlaw gets his first start of the season partnering Godman at half back. Da Luca is also named in the side having recovered from his ankle knock.

Edinburgh: Hugo Southwell, Simon Webster, Ben Cairns, Nick De Luca, John Houston, Phil Godman, Greig Laidlaw, Augusto Allori, Ross Ford, Gavin Kerr, Matt Mustchin, Ben Gissing, Allister Hogg (capt), Alan MacDonald, David Callam. Replacements: Andrew Kelly, Geoff Cross, Craig Hamilton, Scott Newlands, Ben Meyer, David Blair, Calum MacRae.

 

[Sir Speedy]

So, Leinster could lose all their remaining games without losing B-P and regardless of what happens elsewhere, they'd still be champs? The league just got even more boring, but congratulations to them all the same.

 

[shtove]

Any news on Darcy?

Oh yeah - Leinster loss/Edinburgh "skin of teeth" victory. That's the recent form, isn't it?

 

[An Tarbh]

He should be back in action a few weeks

 

[Thingimubob]

Not sure if I'm right or not - if Leinster win this, then they've won the league right? Then again, they could lose this quite easily, considering they've already lost at Murrayfield this season. But I think the only way either Cardiff or Munster can catch Leinster is if they lose all 3 of their remaining games with out Losing Bonus Points, and if that happens, then Cardiff would need to win their last 3 games, with at least one bonus point, and Munster would just need to win their last four games.
Something like that anyway.

Heh, actually, if loads of results go their way, then even the Ospreys have a chance of winning. If they win their remaining 5 games with a winning bonus, then they'd finish 1 point ahead of Leinster, if Leinster lose their remaining games without any losing bonuses, and Cardiff and Munster slip up. Can't see it happening, but anything can happen.

 

[An Tarbh]

A bp win gets the job done for Leinster as Cardiff would still be at least 12 points behind with 2 games remaining, Munster could only finish level on points with Leinster but Leinster would have more wins and the Ospreys can only get to 55 so that's them out of the equation as well.

 

[An Tarbh]

Brian O'Driscoll will make his comeback on Friday having been named in the Leinster starting lineup for the possible ***le clincher against Edinburgh.

Leinster: 15 Girvan Dempsey, 14 Luke Fitzgerald, 13 Brian O'Driscoll, 12 Felipe Contepomi, 11 Rob Kearney, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Chris Whitaker 1 Ollie le Roux, 2 Bernard Jackman, 3 Stan Wright, 4 Leo Cullen©, 5 Trevor Hogan, 6 Stephen Keogh, 7 Shane Jennings, 8 Jamie Heaslip

Replacements: TBC

 

[el_tk]

leinsterrugby.ie has Cullen as the captain

 

[edinburgh_gunner]

Fantastic drama at the end. Dodgey penalty decision at the end, Contempomi hits the post and Edinburgh win the game. Would have been the most undeserved, yet dominant, win for Leinster. Ok, we booed alot but the penalty was extremely funny. Mind you, that ref wasn't too bad last night. The useless knob that was in charge against Cardiff was much worse.

Good win for Edinburgh. We had little in the way of possesion or teritory really throughout the match but we still came away with the win, something that we struggled to do against team poverty...sorry, Glasgow.

Was really impressed with our back line and defence.

The pack got dicked a fair bit in the scrums till Geoff Cross came on and brought some stabillity. Defend well around the rucks, Leinster turned up thinking they could just bully our pack despite having already lost to us at Murrayfield and been ran close in Dublin. Lineout worked well and we recycled the ball well, and in keeping with the rest of the season we turned over some of their ball too.

Some big hits in our backline that really set up our breakaway tries. De Luca was awesome tonight, big hits and good running. Same with Cairns really, they've got to be the future midfield for Scotland. Houston also did well on the wing and Southwell had a really good game (noticed he was the primary kicker tonight, in set pieces he was in the pocket to clear the lines. Whether that was tactical or Godman had a slight knock is unclear). Whoever it was in the Leinster backline that kept dropping the ball was clearly bottling it every time out backline came up.

It was the sort of perfomance that really summed up the best of our season. Making something out of nothing, excellent defence, attitude, work rate and commitment not to mention some big hits. Robinson has hinted he'll be here at least for next year so I hope that full season and some good signings will see us challenging yet.

As for Godman, he played really well. Most Edinburgh fans will tell you that he's been playing consistantly well for Edinburgh since being dropped back in November. Surely he deserves another chance over Hadden's love child, Dan "plays well against Edinburgh but apart from that he's ****" Parks on the tour to Argentina.

 

[shtove]

Leinster's bogey team!

Edinb looked good, but I kept waiting for Leinster to click ... and they did, sort of, until the nutty professor stepped up.

I think Whitaker has a big problem connecting the dots. BOD looking rusty - did he receive any passes?

 

[edinburgh_gunner]

Well Leinster didn't really use their backs, tried to do it through the forwards cause Edinburgh had them in the backline but were struggling upfront I think. O'Driscol got a couple of passes, but was quite quiet. I thought Cairnsy actually outshone the great BOD on this occasion.

 

[An Tarbh]

well I thought Leinster tried to use the backs too much, the one way of beating Edinburgh is to go through them rather than trying to go around them, we only went through them at the end and we ended up nearly undeservedly stealing the win.

 

[feicarsinn]

well on the BOD subject i think the cahp needs a big rest. whoever gets the ireland job should have a chat with him and leave him at home for the summer tour. it would also give us the chhance to test out a few things in the backs

 

[stevemagoo]

There was talk of sticking him in the inside centre channel instead as his skills are all stilll there, just his first 5 yard pace isn't quite back yet.