ceemec wrote:The pass is not functional. It hinders his back lines ability to operate effectively. It damaged a strong chance of a try in the first half when Gopperth had take a pass at full stretch and the move was killed. The pic below is of that pass. That's the ball about 10ft in the air, floating towards its target. Earlier in the same move he missed his receiver and it fortunately bounced into Gopperth's arms.
Extremely talented rugby player and, for that reason, he should be afforded a few more starts this season to assess him more completely but his passing is a liability and, if it doesn't sharpen up, he can not become a regular starter.
No mention of how far away Gopperth is? How deep he is?
Think that was a big part of the problem on Friday. There were a good few times where Luke got to the ruck and almost looked like he had to reel the ball back in and spin around further to find Gopperth.
With that said, his passing was terrible and there's no way a scrumhalf at that level should throw a pass like that. I'm not sayin that was the only issue and it needs serious work. I'd forgive him for knocking on at the back of the ruck because it looked to me like an Edinburgh hand/foot came through. People said it was his own player hanging onto it but I don't think so. He also had a lovely flick back inside and made one brilliant covering catch behind our try line which I don't think have been mentioned either. There's no doubt his speed to the breakdown compensates somewhat for his poor passing. His breaking threat also ties in defenders and affords Jimmy more time. I also think it's noticeable how we get more go forward around the fringes when he's on. Plus he puts in a serious shift in defence, really hungry to stop attackers on the gainline, covering any gaps in behind, and even to get over the ball.
Basically what I'm saying is that his passing is not catastrophically detrimental to his all round game. It was also his first start this season. Actually, was it his first start under MOC? He's clearly going to be rusty in that case.
His passing needs to improve hugely, I'm not blind to that, but I don't like the way he's being written off when there are mitigating factors, when he's so young, and when his replacement on Friday knocked on twice and threw one pass to the floor, none of which have been mentioned.
Its also not about saying how great or how poor he is. His passing is now so poor that I have doubts about how good he could be in terms of an international regular etc, but that's not to say that we should give up on him in a Leinster context now. To my mind he's still a better option than Boss. People can disagree with that, but I've no doubt that I'd at least prefer Luke on the bench to Boss when Reddan starts. I'm convinced that we'll have a really good player if we trust him and build his confidence.
I think the fixation on his passing isn't healthy for anyone. Adding consistency to a part of his game that we know CAN be good is a lot easier to do (with game time and confidence) than trying to add something that isn't there in the first place. I think we're ignoring the bigger picture, and that's both good and bad. For example, I think the worst thing he did on Friday was miss touch when we turned the ball over near our own line having been severely under the cosh but not sure it's been mentioned yet.