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Heineken Champions Cup Semi Final: Leinster v Toulouse

Kind of glad Leinster won in a way.
Reckon they have a better chance of winning against Sarries.

Toulouse are realistically another couple years from being a Final team.

Maybe 2021 Toulouse v Leicester Tigers champions cup final Amsterdam TRF trip?
 
Ruthless performance by Leinster's. Similar to Sarries yesterday where they never let Tolouse into the game at all. Not the final I wanted but sure look.
 
Very happy with that, keeping Toulouse tryless is great.

Not complaining about the ref because overall we probably got the rub of the green with him but it's really annoying to see the offside line being ignored yet again.

Hopefully Cronin is alright, we need him. For two players who were just back from injury Sexton and Henshaw were both brilliant despite a few mistakes from Johnny.
 
Sexton proved form is temporary. He led from the front and in a strange way has JGP became the biggest looser of all. Hard to leave Fardy or Lowe out.
 
Sexton proved form is temporary. He led from the front and in a strange way has JGP became the biggest looser of all. Hard to leave Fardy or Lowe out.
True but O'Sullivan on the bench is a big risk. If we go that way we'll need to get 80 minutes out of McGrath to beat Saracens. And JGP is great off the bench. I agree though, Lowe is probably too good and Fardy (also probably too good) is needed with Molony and Kearney injured.

Sexton overall was brilliant but had a few mistakes, wouldn't be against playing him next week to get him 100% for the final but that's not happening. Luke McGrath was very similar.

SOB proved me and a lot of other people wrong and I thought Henshaw really showed his class.
 
Well done to Leinster. We rode our luck and played some great rugby in Europe. Big learning curve for the youngsters. Big lesson for the staff over their team compo going into this semi.

They got it wrong i.e. backrow of Elstadt Kaino Tekori didn't look right and Dupont at 10. They had better options. I also think we lacked the leadership of French players like Marchand and Verhaeghe in the team. Kaino is not the captain we need. We need a French captain for our team. But with Julien Marchand's injury and Verhaeghe not selected the staff had less options for captaincy.

This will take a huge load off of the team going into the playoffs. We can focus 100% on playoffs while Clermont will have the distraction and fatigue of their Challenge final.
I take it nobody would have wanted 3 French teams in European finals anyway...;)
 
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Well done to Leinster. We rode our luck and played some great rugby in Europe. Big learning curve for the youngsters. Big lesson for the staff over their team compo going into this semi.

They got it wrong i.e. backrow of Elstadt Kaino Tekori didn't look right and Dupont at 10. They had better options. I also think we lacked the leadership of French players like Marchand and Verhaeghe in the team. Kaino is not the captain we need. We need a French captain for our team. But with Julien Marchand's injury and Verhaeghe not selected the staff had less options for captaincy.

This will take a huge load off of the team going into the playoffs. We can focus 100% on playoffs while Clermont will have the distraction and fatigue of their Challenge final.
I take it nobody would have wanted 3 French teams in European finals anyway...;)
I totally agree and couldn't have put it nearly as accurately myself from a Toulouse perspective. And despite all the Toulousains telling me I'd lost the little French I had you're still my second team! You're dead right about a French captain, Toulouse is infinitely closer to what French rugby represents than the national team.

I don't think there was much more than experience between the sides today, look at the key players and they nearly match up apart from 3 or 5 or 10 years difference in age, the prime (and one of the few where they shared the same position) example being Ramos vs Kearney. Ramos could clearly cut open teams like RK was 10 years ago but today experience, knowing where the ball would be and knowing where to set up the next point of attack was the difference between the two players.

I love Toulouse rugby and nothing today changed my mind, the core of that squad has anything from 2 to 5 Heinos in them and I'll be cheering them all the way bar Dublin based losses!

Now for a bit of ************... Leinster were damn good! Camped on their own line three times and no tries conceded, clinical when we had to be, Robbie Henshaw showing why every other player in rugby union is a wee *****, fast pace, feeocifer defence, mostly accurate kicking, clean, structured and clinical rugby, I could go on. That is why I watch rugby, moreso that the audacity TLS displayed at times.

Not a classic Euro fixture but a reminder as to why we do it!

Kind Regards,
Drunk euphoria
 

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