European Cup Semi-Final: Away to La Rochelle, Sunday 2nd of May 3pm

[Ruckedtobits]

Their defensive performance at the breakdown was their real weapon. We conceded some strange decisions decided by Carley but we never dominated the breakdown and their line-out maul was the weapon we didn't have.

Well done to Jono's work on how we carry into contact and how to attack it. We haven't had that happen to us except by Sarries. Two lineout turnovers we made should never have been kicked despite us being a man down and Baird has now learned how tough is the step-up when you're in contact.

The better team won, but not by "keep ball" but by turning over opponents in possession. It's technical but we got to work on it.

Well done to Ed Byrne and Josh but most of the rest were out played by bigger opponents.

[alanair]

Just poor game plan all round im afraid .. poorly resourced breakdown ( particularly in 2nd half) - our attack far too predictable and easy to defend when their players are physically bigger than us , when we ran straight at them . McGrath kicking was poor overall - but really cant complain too much with the result

[blaker]

It does come down to the same problem that we had with Saracens - bigger, superior athletes. When those kind of guys are well coached, there's very little you can do.

I actually disagree, today wasn't won by power.

We just didn't fire at all. Too many errors, bad passes and kicks, knock ons and poor clearouts.

Could've easily won that but it was just a really poor performance. None of our big guys fired. Henshaw, Ryan, Kelleher, Ringer all shut down.

Agree with you re power. They have power and definitely it was a factor but we weren’t ground into the floor.
- their scrum had the edge but beyond 1 peno (I think) it wasn’t a factor.
- their maul power defo was a factor.
Our lineout won out over theirs but mainly because of a few mistakes they made.

I don’t want to kick them when they’re down but I think our half backs were the biggest single factor. McGrath was poor - passing and kicking. Byrne did nothing to change the picture - kicks for touch etc. He has no pace / break and when you’re on the back foot it’s a killer.
In retrospect DK over Larmour would have been better but not a massive factor.

Really interesting to see where we go from here. If you wanted to be harsh we have u set performed across the last 5 years in Europe. There’s a very big natural changing of the guard now and possibly some tough calls to be made elsewhere

[Twist]

The turning point for me was replacing Ruddock with Baird. Baird has many great attributes and will be (and indeed is) a serious player for us. He's not a breakdown guy however - we should have brought Fardy on. Its easy to be wise after the event, after all we were going well at the time, but we conceded so many penalties at the breakdown - which contributed to the 15 points we handed to them from the tee

Yeah I think you’re on the money there. Easy to be wise after the event but I’d back Fardy to have one last Herculean hour in him, especially with LAR milking every break in play. We’ll never know now

[OTT]

Apparently Carley is still out on the pitch playing an advantage from the first half

Show Spoiler:

Badumtsh. Thank you, thank you.

[Dexter]

Apparently Carley is still out on the pitch playing an advantage from the first half

Show Spoiler:

Badumtsh. Thank you, thank you.

[alanair]

Apparently Carley is still out on the pitch playing an advantage from the first half

Show Spoiler:

Badumtsh. Thank you, thank you.

Yeah , never ending advantages are part of his style ok - but hey not down to him that we lost im afraid

[Ruckedtobits]

The Yellow on Lowe was a horrendous decision. The LAR support played Lowe's legs against the ball and he had no chance to get away. One thing a penalty, a really biased decision to make it a card.

Carley did not referee the breakdown or the off-side well. Lowe's kick before Skelton try went backwards therefore no offside line.

We weren't good enough but neither were we given a fair shot.

[Dexter]

BT sports highlights show: " two brilliant semi finals coming up"

[Keith]

The Yellow on Lowe was a horrendous decision. The LAR support played Lowe's legs against the ball and he had no chance to get away. One thing a penalty, a really biased decision to make it a card.

Carley did not referee the breakdown or the off-side well. Lowe's kick before Skelton try went backwards therefore no offside line.

We weren't good enough but neither were we given a fair shot.

Bizarre call, the fact the French tv wouldn't show a proper replay of the incident shows you it was wrong. But the better team won unfortunately.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I don’t understand the disparity between how we controlled the ball/breakdown so well in the first 10/15 minutes and then were so bad for the rest of the game. Rhys might have been a factor alright but we totally went away from that close in carrying and support play and I’m at a loss as to why.

Power a huge issue, not sure how anyone could argue otherwise. It’s not all just technical stuff that meant we missed clearouts etc, it’s also the immense power of the opposition that was difficult to counter and was kept up for most of the 80 minutes.

I said weeks ago that their power worried me but I expected us to have more answers based on what we learned from Saracens and how well we played against Exeter. There were no answers at all and that was compounded by some very harsh/wrong decisions by Carley and a lack of impact on the bench.

A really bad day at the office for almost everyone on and off the pitch. Thought Josh and Conan were both brilliant and Kelleher grew into it very well, big engine on him. Furlong good too but nobody seemed to be on his shoulder when he was making good carries and there was a constant theme that we were isolated.

That’ll really leave a bitter taste in the mouth for the squad because it was so flat for the most part, it was very...Munster.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

The Yellow on Lowe was a horrendous decision. The LAR support played Lowe's legs against the ball and he had no chance to get away. One thing a penalty, a really biased decision to make it a card.

Carley did not referee the breakdown or the off-side well. Lowe's kick before Skelton try went backwards therefore no offside line.

We weren't good enough but neither were we given a fair shot.

Agree 100%. Hard to analyse properly without a decent replay but even if he did do something (and i agree with what you saw) then it wasn’t overly cynical because they had no support or chance to score and it wasn’t like we had been shipping lots of penalties under pressure. Rubbish decision and played a big part.

[Blue Man]

Very disappointed.

They just had too much power. They had the squeeze in the scrum, won the collisions and their caries around the fringes got them easy meters. Atonio and Skelton unstoppable.

Interestingly, nine of the La Rochelle starting XV hail from outside France (vs one for Leinster). Difficult for Irish sides to compete with that sort of recruitment.

Gibbs has the pack very well drilled, hope Stade’s flair can win the final against the blunt force or LR.

[Dexter]

The Yellow on Lowe was a horrendous decision. The LAR support played Lowe's legs against the ball and he had no chance to get away. One thing a penalty, a really biased decision to make it a card.

Carley did not referee the breakdown or the off-side well. Lowe's kick before Skelton try went backwards therefore no offside line.

We weren't good enough but neither were we given a fair shot.

There was just a very interesting discussion just now on Sky sports about the impact of bad refereeing in soccer on the leagues/ tournament, with a great rant by Souness. Different code but similar principles.
Not saying bad refereeing cost us the game because Leinster were poor and LR were good, but its more the general issue.

[Dexter]

Very disappointed.

They just had too much power. They had the squeeze in the scrum, won the collisions and their caries around the fringes got them easy meters. Atonio and Skelton unstoppable.

Interestingly, nine of the La Rochelle starting XV hail from outside France (vs one for Leinster). Difficult for Irish sides to compete with that sort of recruitment.

Gibbs has the pack very well drilled, hope Stade’s flair can win the final against the blunt force or LR.

I'd still rather support Leinster, for that reason, despite the result.

[OTT]

Interestingly, nine of the La Rochelle starting XV hail from outside France (vs one for Leinster). Difficult for Irish sides to compete with that sort of recruitment.

On another day we beat that team with all our Irish lads and that will be a great day maybe next season. Just have to get back to the drawing board and get better where we can.

[Keith]

Very disappointed.

They just had too much power. They had the squeeze in the scrum, won the collisions and their caries around the fringes got them easy meters. Atonio and Skelton unstoppable.

Interestingly, nine of the La Rochelle starting XV hail from outside France (vs one for Leinster). Difficult for Irish sides to compete with that sort of recruitment.

Gibbs has the pack very well drilled, hope Stade’s flair can win the final against the blunt force or LR.

That's BS, I'm sorry. We've a squad full of internationals. Again you can't win every game, leave the excuses to premiership fans.

[OTT]

The good news is all the lads and ladies who were concerned if there would be an asterisk beside the win this year if we went on and won the cup can sleep easy tonight, those troubles and self doubt are for Toulouse and La Rochelle fans now

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Very disappointed.

They just had too much power. They had the squeeze in the scrum, won the collisions and their caries around the fringes got them easy meters. Atonio and Skelton unstoppable.

Interestingly, nine of the La Rochelle starting XV hail from outside France (vs one for Leinster). Difficult for Irish sides to compete with that sort of recruitment.

Gibbs has the pack very well drilled, hope Stade’s flair can win the final against the blunt force or LR.

That's BS, I'm sorry. We've a squad full of internationals. Again you can't win every game, leave the excuses to premiership fans.

Our squad is fine but not today because of the injuries IMO. We had no depth in the back row and couldn’t change the halfbacks but I can’t imagine we’ll end up in that situation again.

[backrower8]

Rog will be happy about this

Do you think?