Pro 14 Final vs Munster, March 27th. 5pm. @ The RDS.

[fourthirtythree]

Fit in nicely beside Molony.

[Serb]

The whole “Leinster have the biggest squad” trope is disingenuous. Sure it’s true for this season, but you only have to look back one or two seasons for a time when Munster had a squad that was 15% larger. Munster will almost certainly have a bigger squad next season too.

Take 2018/19, Leinster had 42 players in the squad not including Nagle who was at Ulster at the time and Daly who was at Connacht. Munster had 48.

Was the narrative then that the IRFU were splashing the cash on Munster and all the other provinces were being starved of resources? Of course not.

I think Leinster have generally been better at trimming the fat when it comes to squad size, sometimes to our detriment as there are good players who have gotten away.

Squad size isn’t a great proxy for how much the clubs are spending anyway. It varies a lot from season to season, but bringing players through the academy is always going to be cheaper than, say, dropping millions on a couple of South African imports.

[mildlyinterested]

Larkham says Munster spoke a lot about "belief" at their team meeting this morning as they reviewed the defeat to Leinster.

"It was fairly evenly matched throughout the game. We've got the skillset and game plan."

[fourthirtythree]

Well half of that is true. They really did appear to completely lose any belief they had once we got on the front foot from the off and just kept on coming. They looked like us against Saracens, Ireland against England until the last match. As Ireland showed that can change.

The player stats show the second half is not true. And to keep on banging on about it: what was your plan for the centres Larkham? Because it looked agricultural and ineffective.

[Peg Leg]

The whole “Leinster have the biggest squad” trope is disingenuous. Sure it’s true for this season, but you only have to look back one or two seasons for a time when Munster had a squad that was 15% larger. Munster will almost certainly have a bigger squad next season too.

Take 2018/19, Leinster had 42 players in the squad not including Nagle who was at Ulster at the time and Daly who was at Connacht. Munster had 48.

Was the narrative then that the IRFU were splashing the cash on Munster and all the other provinces were being starved of resources? Of course not.

I think Leinster have generally been better at trimming the fat when it comes to squad size, sometimes to our detriment as there are good players who have gotten away.

Squad size isn’t a great proxy for how much the clubs are spending anyway. It varies a lot from season to season, but bringing players through the academy is always going to be cheaper than, say, dropping millions on a couple of South African imports.

The trope comes from our commendable utilisation of the academy for professional matches. The academy is viewed by the press as part of the squad with some tripe about schools rugby being almost professional... unfair advantage... a conveyor belt... large population... etc.
Its funny to read it like that, because the 'schools rugby' gripe is incongruent with large population. It's one or the other and if its the former perhaps the NucIRFUa should look into that, or the province should seek investment for schools to share full time professional coaches (as per Flannery's suggestion on a podcast I listened to a long time ago).
Bear in mind this is the same media that relishes the ambiguity of mythos, passion, the unquantifiable's of want and need. You can thread a story from notions and feelings that is far more likely to resonate with the part time interests of the part time fan, because they can buy into things they don't fully understand but know how it makes them feel.

[Peg Leg]

Well half of that is true. They really did appear to completely lose any belief they had once we got on the front foot from the off and just kept on coming. They looked like us against Saracens, Ireland against England until the last match. As Ireland showed that can change.

The player stats show the second half is not true. And to keep on banging Aon about it: what was your plan for the centres Markham? Because it looked agricultural and ineffective.

Very hard to have belief when any iota of progression gets binned in favour of conservatism on the big day out.

[mildlyinterested]

Niall Scannell on the first half of the Leinster game: "We invited pressure in the first twenty minutes of the game but then we grew into the game and put them under pressure."

[Barry]

Niall Scannell on the first half of the Leinster game: "We invited pressure in the first twenty minutes of the game but then we grew into the game and put them under pressure."

Missed the bit when Leinster were under pressure, must have dozed off

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

[mildlyinterested]

MUNSTER SENIOR COACH Stephen Larkham says the Pro14 final defeat to Leinster last weekend was “fairly evenly matched.”

The southern province were level at 6-6 at half time after Leinster had missed a series of try-scoring chances but Leo Cullen and Staurt Lancaster’s scored through Jack Conan to help them pull clear in the second 40 minutes.

Munster failed to threaten Leinster to any great extent in attack but Larkham today stated his belief that there wasn’t any clear gap between the teams.

“It was one of those games that just crept away from us,” said Larkham. “We’ve spoken a fair bit about belief this morning. That’s a key message. Are they better than us? They were better than us on the day.

“There’s some stats that if you look at it, they made more mistakes than us when they had their hands on the ball. They kicked more than us throughout the game.

“It was fairly evenly-matched throughout the whole game and the one thing we really take out of it is that we’ve got the game plan and the skill there. We’ve just got to beat them on the day by better execution in certain parts of the game.”

https://www.the42.ie/munster-leinster-s ... 6-Mar2021/

[Theleinsterlad]

MUNSTER SENIOR COACH Stephen Larkham says the Pro14 final defeat to Leinster last weekend was “fairly evenly matched.”

The southern province were level at 6-6 at half time after Leinster had missed a series of try-scoring chances but Leo Cullen and Staurt Lancaster’s scored through Jack Conan to help them pull clear in the second 40 minutes.

Munster failed to threaten Leinster to any great extent in attack but Larkham today stated his belief that there wasn’t any clear gap between the teams.

“It was one of those games that just crept away from us,” said Larkham. “We’ve spoken a fair bit about belief this morning. That’s a key message. Are they better than us? They were better than us on the day.

“There’s some stats that if you look at it, they made more mistakes than us when they had their hands on the ball. They kicked more than us throughout the game.

“It was fairly evenly-matched throughout the whole game and the one thing we really take out of it is that we’ve got the game plan and the skill there. We’ve just got to beat them on the day by better execution in certain parts of the game.”

https://www.the42.ie/munster-leinster-s ... 6-Mar2021/

Well if that’s what he’s saying and he believes it you can understand why Munster have not improved since our semifinal with them last year. If I was a Munster fan reading that I’d pull my hair out

[wixfjord]

Good comment on The42.ie

They say that everytime Leinster beat Munster a new South African second row just appears

[mildlyinterested]

Good comment on The42.ie

They say that everytime Leinster beat Munster a new South African second row just appears

[D4surfer]

MUNSTER SENIOR COACH Stephen Larkham says the Pro14 final defeat to Leinster last weekend was “fairly evenly matched.”

The southern province were level at 6-6 at half time after Leinster had missed a series of try-scoring chances but Leo Cullen and Staurt Lancaster’s scored through Jack Conan to help them pull clear in the second 40 minutes.

Munster failed to threaten Leinster to any great extent in attack but Larkham today stated his belief that there wasn’t any clear gap between the teams.

“It was one of those games that just crept away from us,” said Larkham. “We’ve spoken a fair bit about belief this morning. That’s a key message. Are they better than us? They were better than us on the day.

“There’s some stats that if you look at it, they made more mistakes than us when they had their hands on the ball. They kicked more than us throughout the game.

“It was fairly evenly-matched throughout the whole game and the one thing we really take out of it is that we’ve got the game plan and the skill there. We’ve just got to beat them on the day by better execution in certain parts of the game.”

https://www.the42.ie/munster-leinster-s ... 6-Mar2021/

Well if that’s what he’s saying and he believes it you can understand why Munster have not improved since our semifinal with them last year. If I was a Munster fan reading that I’d pull my hair out

Jebus wept, that's delusional nonsense. You're certainly going to make less mistakes with ball in hand when you don't have ball in hand.

[Peg Leg]

MUNSTER SENIOR COACH Stephen Larkham says the Pro14 final defeat to Leinster last weekend was “fairly evenly matched.”

The southern province were level at 6-6 at half time after Leinster had missed a series of try-scoring chances but Leo Cullen and Staurt Lancaster’s scored through Jack Conan to help them pull clear in the second 40 minutes.

Munster failed to threaten Leinster to any great extent in attack but Larkham today stated his belief that there wasn’t any clear gap between the teams.

“It was one of those games that just crept away from us,” said Larkham. “We’ve spoken a fair bit about belief this morning. That’s a key message. Are they better than us? They were better than us on the day.

“There’s some stats that if you look at it, they made more mistakes than us when they had their hands on the ball. They kicked more than us throughout the game.

“It was fairly evenly-matched throughout the whole game and the one thing we really take out of it is that we’ve got the game plan and the skill there. We’ve just got to beat them on the day by better execution in certain parts of the game.”

https://www.the42.ie/munster-leinster-s ... 6-Mar2021/

See now, I would just lose confidence in my leaders if they were full of shite. This is pure Sean Spicer level bullshit.

[Serb]

If you were a Munster fan, no matter where you think your team is at, I think you'd be fairly worried about a statement like that. There was nothing close about that game. It was probably the worst Munster have been against Leinster in a decade. They literally did not visit our 22.

Larkham has been in situ for two years now, and there's very little evidence he has done anything in that time. We may be "waiting for the system to bed in" or whatever shite is being spun, but then we say Paul O'Connell's fingerprints are all over the Irish team's lineout and breakdown after being in the job a couple of weeks. Does it take 2 weeks or 2 years for the system to come good?

Larkham is a disaster, I have no doubt about that, but the fact that he can't own the fact that he is the problem and is effectively saying it's the players fault is insulting. No wonder Australia ditched him for the Australia job once they had worked directly with him.

[D4surfer]

If you were a Munster fan, no matter where you think your team is at, I think you'd be fairly worried about a statement like that. There was nothing close about that game. It was probably the worst Munster have been against Leinster in a decade. They literally did not visit our 22.

Larkham has been in situ for two years now, and there's very little evidence he has done anything in that time. We may be "waiting for the system to bed in" or whatever shite is being spun, but then we say Paul O'Connell's fingerprints are all over the Irish team's lineout and breakdown after being in the job a couple of weeks. Does it take 2 weeks or 2 years for the system to come good?

Larkham is a disaster, I have no doubt about that, but the fact that he can't own the fact that he is the problem and is effectively saying it's the players fault is insulting. No wonder Australia ditched him for the Australia job once they had worked directly with him.

He's a spoofer. He says "they kicked more than us throughout the game". Leinster kicked 20 times from 363 possessions (5%) compared with 18 times from 228 possessions (8%) so about half as much. Long may he stay there.

[ronk]

Good comment on The42.ie

They say that everytime Leinster beat Munster a new South African second row just appears

When you put it that way, I hope they sign every lock in South Africa.

[Peg Leg]

One team played beneath their potential on the 27th and it was reflected in the scoreline.

[limecat]

He's a spoofer. He says "they kicked more than us throughout the game". Leinster kicked 20 times from 490 possessions (4%) compared with 18 times from 207 possessions (9%) so less than half as much. Long may he stay there.

And at the same time, he's entirely correct; 20 > 18.

But we also ran more times (167 - 93) for more metres (490 - 207) and more metres per run (2.93 - 2.23), passed more (176 - 117), had more clean breaks (10 - 1), beat more defenders (35 - 10), offloaded more (7 - 4)...off 64% possession and 71% territory...

Stats as per https://www.espn.com/rugby/matchstats?g ... gue=270557

[ronk]

One team played beneath their potential on the 27th and it was reflected in the scoreline.

You think Munster played to their potential? I thought they could have done better but they played ok.