Scarlets v. Leinster

[mikey]

Happy, very happy with that.

I loved the way we came our all guns blazing at the start of the second half - Imagine O'Connor had some things to say and they worked.

Careless in places with the high tackle and challenge in the air for the yellows - hard to argue with those, but not sure Jacks was Yellow, but the Scarlets punch should have been a red.

Gopperth looks handy enough - balanced play, took his points well and seemed very strong. Jordi looking excellent at 8 - so glad he is back. Hudson despite his bin was great too, and Jennings I thought had a very good game.

Bonus point and 5 tries - imagine they will be drinking the Cat dry tonight!

TMO and Ref were piss poor - why have a TMO if he awards an ungrounded try and lets late tackles go begging...so much for the impartial officials the Rabo promised.

[Armchair]

Very impressive 2nd half hadn't seen much of Fanning before but he was very steady, strong in the tackle and done everything well. Murphy was immense and McGrath was good to glad to see all the newbies going well, great result

[Slipper1]

Happy, very happy with that.

I loved the way we came our all guns blazing at the start of the second half - Imagine O'Connor had some things to say and they worked.

Careless in places with the high tackle and challenge in the air for the yellows - hard to argue with those, but not sure Jacks was Yellow, but the Scarlets punch should have been a red.

Gopperth looks handy enough - balanced play, took his points well and seemed very strong. Jordi looking excellent at 8 - so glad he is back. Hudson despite his bin was great too, and Jennings I thought had a very good game.

Bonus point and 5 tries - imagine they will be drinking the Cat dry tonight!

TMO and Ref were piss poor - why have a TMO if he awards an ungrounded try and lets late tackles go begging...so much for the impartial officials the Rabo promised.

Try / No Try wasent the TMO's fault - he can only adjudicate on what he's asked to look at. I think they're still the rules on that.

[ceemec]

Hasn't been mentioned yet but, as dodgy as he was defensively, Macken was immense with the ball in hand. He barreled through people. I know he's powerful but tonight he showed much more aggression in contact much more. He showed real class for the Murphy try, bouncing two defenders and then offloading out of the tackle, essentially taking out 3 defenders. He showed superb hands as well for Kearney's try and to put Fitz away in the opening half.

Thought Ruddock had a very understated but dominant performance (if that isn't an oxymoron). He didn't have many flash plays but was a beast around the field. Turned over possession twice with choke tackles, tidied up huge amount of cr@p ball, getting back to his support when we were isolated and tackled his heart out.

I thought Dave Kearney also looked very exciting with ball in hand from 15 when coming onto the ball, much more so than his brother in recent times, to be honest although the opposition must be considered.

Scrum is a concern. We need to go back to the drawing board and learn how deal with this new system. Those two boys would have handled Scarlets last year much better but were struggling significantly. It wasn't helped by a non-dominant second row behind them but that wasn't a great front five opposing them.

[Oldschool]

Yes, but the small matter of Ireland v Sweden will take centre stage in my household tomorrow. Which is fair enough, should be a good game too.

Looking forward to seeing Gopperth in the blue, also the return of Luke. Denton at second row is interesting, I hope he does well. Delighted to see Moore being elevated so quickly to a start in the Magners, so lots to savour in that team selection. The battle for the 10 jersey begins, with many subplots in other positions. I think we could shade it, but I'm not a Johnny Lacey (ref) fan. Had he refereed us properly a year ago in Wales, Jamie Hagan might well be still on our books. He was repeatedly penalised despite cleaning out the Ospreys scrum, and the doubts lingered. Sin scéal eile I suppose.

In hindsight - Not your best call perhaps?

[Oldschool]

Leinster NG looking good.

NG ?

Next Generation.

[Oldschool]

John Laceys try separates the teams at half time

To be fair to Lacey, he couldn't trust the TMO and started to use the big screen himself. At one point he pretty much told Bevan (TMO and long retired ex Welsh referee) what decision to make.

[Oldschool]

Shakey start. masterful 2nd half. really got it together as a squad. Jordi Murphy is god. omnipresent.

Ruddock good game too. Looked a bit lost with ball in hand but huge in defence. defo a 6.

You've hinted at it, but it it's the sign of a good coach/team when you see things being sorted at half time and then put right in the second half.
Congrats Matt.

[domhnallj]

hurray

[sid]

Shakey start. masterful 2nd half. really got it together as a squad. Jordi Murphy is god. omnipresent.

Ruddock good game too. Looked a bit lost with ball in hand but huge in defence. defo a 6.

You've hinted at it, but it it's the sign of a good coach/team when you see things being sorted at half time and then put right in the second half.
Congrats Matt.

I disagree. You don't win Heineken Cups by fixing things at half time.

[blockhead]

All tries now on Rabo site.
Great, and much relieved start, I'd say, for MOC.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Delighted with that over all. It was important that MOC got off to a good start given who he was replacing and the players that we'd lost.

I was particularly looking out for our outside backs, the props, and the set piece. For me, these are the things that will make or break our season. Hudson and Kearney should be given severe bollockings for the brain dead yellows they picked up but were both excellent apart from that. Fanning didn't put a foot wrong and made some nice plays. He was a bit unlucky on a couple of occasions where he ran great support lines but just wasn't passed to. Thought Macken was brilliant. He looked much improved in defence which was made even more impressive by the fact that he was a late inclusion. He looked hungrier for work and more powerful than before, passing was very good too.

It was a bit of a mixed bag from the props. The scrum was poor but hopefully it's just a case of getting used to the new engagement laws because we know they're usually both fine scrummagers. Thought Murphy did brilliantly at the back of a dodgy scrum though, a huge upgrade on Leo. He had a great game all round really aside from poor positioning for the try that should never have been. Thought the props worked very well in defence together too. The line out is a bit of a worry. I was really hoping we'd see a dramatic improvement there.

Such a shame that Luke went off, hopefully it's just a strain. He looked reasonably sharp when he was on. McCarthy was excellent when he came on too. I've been worried that his poor form of this calendar year was going to continue but he was excellent.

I'm surprised Ruddock is getting so much praise. By my count he missed at least 4 tackles in the first 13 minutes or so when the Scarlets built up a lead. He did improve hugely after that in defence but thought he took the ball from a standing start too often and regularly got isolated. I'm a big fan of his though and the missed tackles and getting isolated are very unusual for him so I'm not worried at all and, as I said, he certainly did improve as the game went on.

In terms of new things that MOC is trying to introduce, thought we were looking to hit our outside backs very quickly and what was important/impressive about that was that they were working very nicely in pods so that they were never isolated. Our support play in general was excellent. Not that we could ever have been described as a kick and chase team under Joe but I did think it was noticeable that we kicked less than before and I'm very happy with that given that none of our 9s are particularly good at it and we won't have Isa chasing kicks anymore.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Delighted with that over all. It was important that MOC got off to a good start given who he was replacing and the players that we'd lost.

I was particularly looking out for our outside backs, the props, and the set piece. For me, these are the things that will make or break our season. Hudson and Kearney should be given severe bollockings for the brain dead yellows they picked up but were both excellent apart from that. Fanning didn't put a foot wrong and made some nice plays. He was a bit unlucky on a couple of occasions where he ran great support lines but just wasn't passed to. Thought Macken was brilliant. He looked much improved in defence which was made even more impressive by the fact that he was a late inclusion. He looked hungrier for work and more powerful than before, passing was very good too.

It was a bit of a mixed bag from the props. The scrum was poor but hopefully it's just a case of getting used to the new engagement laws because we know they're usually both fine scrummagers. Thought Murphy did brilliantly at the back of a dodgy scrum though, a huge upgrade on Leo. He had a great game all round really aside from poor positioning for the try that should never have been. Thought the props worked very well in defence together too. The line out is a bit of a worry. I was really hoping we'd see a dramatic improvement there.

Such a shame that Luke went off, hopefully it's just a strain. He looked reasonably sharp when he was on. McCarthy was excellent when he came on too. I've been worried that his poor form of this calendar year was going to continue but he was excellent.

I'm surprised Ruddock is getting so much praise. By my count he missed at least 4 tackles in the first 13 minutes or so when the Scarlets built up a lead. He did improve hugely after that in defence but thought he took the ball from a standing start too often and regularly got isolated. I'm a big fan of his though and the missed tackles and getting isolated are very unusual for him so I'm not worried at all and, as I said, he certainly did improve as the game went on.

In terms of new things that MOC is trying to introduce, thought we were looking to hit our outside backs very quickly and what was important/impressive about that was that they were working very nicely in pods so that they were never isolated. Our support play in general was excellent. Not that we could ever have been described as a kick and chase team under Joe but I did think it was noticeable that we kicked less than before and I'm very happy with that given that none of our 9s are particularly good at it and we won't have Isa chasing kicks anymore.

[Cianostays]

It's pretty much been said by everybody already, a bp win away in Wales with plenty of issues to work on = perfect start really. I thought our breakdown work, a real trademark of our since Jonno Gibbes arrived, was pretty poor in the first half. It did improve in the 2nd half but I'd hope for a better showing next week.

I was really impressed with our offensive timing (running and passing) in the 2nd half especially from McGrath, Murphy, Macken and Toner, for Gopperth's try, was a joy to watch.

Roll on Ospreys next week

[slum]

Shakey start. masterful 2nd half. really got it together as a squad. Jordi Murphy is god. omnipresent.

Ruddock good game too. Looked a bit lost with ball in hand but huge in defence. defo a 6.

You've hinted at it, but it it's the sign of a good coach/team when you see things being sorted at half time and then put right in the second half.
Congrats Matt.

I disagree. You don't win Heineken Cups by fixing things at half time.

I'm with oldschool on this one. You also don't win Heineken Cups on the first weekend of the league.

Unlike the numpty he replaced, Schmidt was always excellent at picking through the opposition during the first half and invariably the full time score looked better than at half time (some stato master may be able to back that up...)

MOC came with a reputation of being a good technical analyst, so great to see that in practice.

Having said that, Scarlets were utter muck in the 2nd half and they were their own worst enemy. Horrible unforced errors stats in attack and bad discipline in defence.

[slum]

Oh yeah, and try telling Johnny Sexton you don't win Heineken cups by fixing things at half time...

[Keith]

Oh yeah, and try telling Johnny Sexton you don't win Heineken cups by fixing things at half time...

He was being sarcastic!

[slum]

Surely there's some sort of smiley for that. I'll get me coat

[Keith]

Surely there's some sort of smiley for that. I'll get me coat

At least I hope he was being sarcastic

[sid]

I knew I'd get at least one