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

[Atlas]

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.

I'm not so sure. That was our first choice pack and it was beaten up. You could argue Leavy/Connors but Josh had a good game so not much would have been added.

[backrower8]

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.

This is key, key, key. What other leading side is sourcing almost all their players from home? 2 out of 23 is too few. We need ballast in the pack and Harry/Frawley need to come through for Ross.

[Dave Cahill]

This is key, key, key. What other leading side is sourcing almost all their players from home? 2 out of 23 is too few. We need ballast in the pack and Harry/Frawley need to come through for Ross.

Every side in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Argentina - in fact every side in every country except England and France.

Thats the system, we enjoy the swings but we have to live with the roundabouts.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

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.

I'm not so sure. That was our first choice pack and it was beaten up. You could argue Leavy/Connors but Josh had a good game so not much would have been added.

Deegan and Doris too. Being able to bring on a proper back rower early on and saving Baird for later in the row (although I still think he could be a great six) would have made a big difference. Having JGP to add to that then would have been massive. Don’t think we can underestimate the impact of those injuries tbh.

Was just wondering what the impact of the rainbow f%~king cup might have had on us too. I’ve no idea what our fixtures would have been if the league hadn’t been changed but it felt like we were undercooked. I wasn’t worried against Exeter because of the players having the 6N before that but I didn’t think we looked right today after that great start.

[Twist]

I said when he was up for grabs we should go all in for Skelton. If Munster can get someone like Snyman then it’s not unrealistic to think we could do similar. We lack that sheer bulk

As long as we’re supplying a huge tranche to Ireland for the 6N we’ll probably always have a lot of injuries in April & May.

[hugonaut]

Better team won. Their defence was excellent and didn't give us an inch. Great tackling from them and great jackalling on a lot of occasions ... they were able to get a good few stops in the second half with turnovers or turnover penalties.

Their kicking game was better; I felt that they were able to get better distance on touch-finders. They also had sufficient faith in their defence that they had no mental problem with kicking the ball long down the middle of the pitch and relying on their defensive press.

The third area where they really had one over us was their maul – the EPCR website has a good stat for 'Maul Metres Gained': https://www.epcrugby.com/report/la-roch ... statistics - they had 24m off 6 mauls, we made 0m off two and got turned over on one of them. To quite a large extent that is dictated by your personnel ... they have a two-man maul in Skelton and Atonio.

We couldn't maul them at all, so we couldn't suck players into a small spot on the pitch. That had a knock-on effect on how many players they could put into the breakdown when we attacked them in phase play. It also made us a little bit predictable. We played an awful lot of the game on the openside of the breakdown, and in fairness, they defended that really well.

[Dexter]

I said when he was up for grabs we should go all in for Skelton. If Munster can get someone like Snyman then it’s not unrealistic to think we could do similar. We lack that sheer bulk

As long as we’re supplying a huge tranche to Ireland for the 6N we’ll probably always have a lot of injuries in April & May.

Someone like him, fully fit if course, would have made a massive difference today. We just have a different model though. It means we have disappointing days like today, but it's not the end of the world.

[Dave Cahill]

...and I was hoping to cheer myself up with the Man U - Liverpool game...

[wixfjord]

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.

This is key, key, key. What other leading side is sourcing almost all their players from home? 2 out of 23 is too few. We need ballast in the pack and Harry/Frawley need to come through for Ross.

When we win it's because of the incredible talent line and the fact the players are so cohesive/on the same wavelength.

When we lose it's because we source too many players from the local pool.

We had more than enough 'ballast' to win that game. We had the starting Lions TH along with what is seemingly one of the best 2nd rows in the world. Would you swap them for Atonio and Skelton?

Fact it, we just didn't play well.

[Keith]

I said when he was up for grabs we should go all in for Skelton. If Munster can get someone like Snyman then it’s not unrealistic to think we could do similar. We lack that sheer bulk

As long as we’re supplying a huge tranche to Ireland for the 6N we’ll probably always have a lot of injuries in April & May.

Someone like him, fully fit if course, would have made a massive difference today. We just have a different model though. It means we have disappointing days like today, but it's not the end of the world.

Again this is absoulety BS. Ryan is twice the player Skelton is but has been out injured unfortunately. Once again you can't win every game. We had Exeter away than la Rochelle away it doesn't get much tougher than that. No need for any knee jerk reactions, we'll be back in contention next year.

[Atlas]

LAR fitness was very good as well. Granted they had a nice lead bit were still going strong at the end.

Tactic of tiring out big packs is getting a lot harder when 6 of the starting 8 can be replaced and fitness levels in France in general are on the up.

[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.

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.

We have a phenomenal squad but the bench today lacked impact. Worth reflecting on some of Mildly Interested’s threads on squad depth. For me, we lack an international class replacement loose head and hooker, there has been rotten luck with backrow injuries, obviously we only have two credible 9s and there are some concerns over 3/4s depth.

[Lock9541]

Isn’t Frawley out of contract?

[Twist]

I said when he was up for grabs we should go all in for Skelton. If Munster can get someone like Snyman then it’s not unrealistic to think we could do similar. We lack that sheer bulk

As long as we’re supplying a huge tranche to Ireland for the 6N we’ll probably always have a lot of injuries in April & May.

Someone like him, fully fit if course, would have made a massive difference today. We just have a different model though. It means we have disappointing days like today, but it's not the end of the world.

Again this is absoulety BS. Ryan is twice the player Skelton is but has been out injured unfortunately. Once again you can't win every game. We had Exeter away than la Rochelle away it doesn't get much tougher than that. No need for any knee jerk reactions, we'll be back in contention next year.

Yeah generally speaking Id agree. But that massive physical size and strength is something we don’t have. It’s an arrow that several teams have in their quiver that we don’t. Sometimes you need to match the power they bring because other parts of your game aren’t clicking

[Blue Man]

I said when he was up for grabs we should go all in for Skelton. If Munster can get someone like Snyman then it’s not unrealistic to think we could do similar. We lack that sheer bulk

As long as we’re supplying a huge tranche to Ireland for the 6N we’ll probably always have a lot of injuries in April & May.

Someone like him, fully fit if course, would have made a massive difference today. We just have a different model though. It means we have disappointing days like today, but it's not the end of the world.

Again this is absoulety BS. Ryan is twice the player Skelton is but has been out injured unfortunately. Once again you can't win every game. We had Exeter away than la Rochelle away it doesn't get much tougher than that. No need for any knee jerk reactions, we'll be back in contention next year.

“ Ryan is twice the player Skelton is”

At least you can retain a sense of humour despite the defeat

[thepunter]

This nonsense of wearing masks after games needs to stop, Sweltering heat and lads coming off the pitch gasping for air having their breathing restricted, rebreathing their own C02, blood crying out for oxygen they're not getting.

Of course masks are absolute madness in every day life in general, having absolutely ZERO impact on preventing viral spread (that's peer-reviewed science), but putting them on professional athletes that have just had their heads up each others holes for 60 minutes makes me seriously despair for the species.

Absolute utter bloody madness, and a serious health and safety/workplace abuse issue.

[wixfjord]

Jaysus I didn't predict this loss, but I definitely didn't predict the day ending with anti-maskers on LF.com!

[Keith]

Someone like him, fully fit if course, would have made a massive difference today. We just have a different model though. It means we have disappointing days like today, but it's not the end of the world.

Again this is absoulety BS. Ryan is twice the player Skelton is but has been out injured unfortunately. Once again you can't win every game. We had Exeter away than la Rochelle away it doesn't get much tougher than that. No need for any knee jerk reactions, we'll be back in contention next year.

“ Ryan is twice the player Skelton is”

At least you can retain a sense of humour despite the defeat

Rugby didn't start in 2021 you know....

[Blueberry]

Gutted....

Skelton was insanely good, couldn't handle him at all.

How many yards did he make in tight carries ?

Bottom line is we are 10% light in sheer bulk and ballast when we come up against these stacked massive imported teams, same story with Toulon in the day, Saracens and now LAR.

Feel the Larmour to Luke missed chance was our moment and today we just didn't convert. If that had been 7 the second half could have been very different.

Pity.

[MylesNaGapoleen]

- thought LAR adapted to ref quicker than we did..he blew really quickly for turnovers (for both sides)
- thought we lacked something up front when rudders went off.
- LAR deserved the win. Gutted, but, fair play.