The Leinster Backrow preview 2021/22

[carlow man]

Does anyone know how leavy has been since he's had his operation? Is he expected to be involved at the start of the season or is he working his way back in slowly? Hope he is going to be able to get back to his old self otherwise it could all end up getting very messy.

[wixfjord]

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[Oldschool]

To clear up a couple of points.
For the purposes of making the point I excluded Leavy from the reckoning obviously having him available would make a big difference.
Ireland with Tadg Beirne at 6 and your bog standard 8 would be two thirds of the way toward what I'm proposing.
On the basis that the big European teams will keep beating us up then we have to come up with ways to counter that.
It's up to our coaches and players to adapt and I think that they have the capacity to do so.
Jack Conan can be our 6 but as a Tadg Beirne type 6. Ross Murphy looks to have the capacity to adapt to that type of role too.
I've know doubt that Lancaster is eminently qualified to make it happen.
The alternative is to keep failing at the sharp end of the HCC stages.

[wixfjord]

To clear up a couple of points.
For the purposes of making the point I excluded Leavy from the reckoning obviously having him available would make a big difference.
Ireland with Tadg Beirne at 6 and your bog standard 8 would be two thirds of the way toward what I'm proposing.
On the basis that the big European teams will keep beating us up then we have to come up with ways to counter that.
It's up to our coaches and players to adapt and I think that they have the capacity to do so.
Jack Conan can be our 6 but as a Tadg Beirne type 6. Ross Murphy looks to have the capacity to adapt to that type of role too.
I've know doubt that Lancaster is eminently qualified to make it happen.
The alternative is to keep failing at the sharp end of the HCC stages.

I don't really know what you're proposing here?! Play Jack Conan or Molony at 6? That's going to help us stop 'failing at the sharp end of the HCC'?

Ireland with Beirne at 6, VDF at 7 and Doris 8 is probably our best backrow, because it's balanced, physical, has lots of turnover threat and you've three guys playing in probably their best positions. How does that tally with your idea of 'a Leinster BR of Doris, Ruddock, Conan and Deegan in whatever combination'?

[Oldschool]

To clear up a couple of points.
For the purposes of making the point I excluded Leavy from the reckoning obviously having him available would make a big difference.
Ireland with Tadg Beirne at 6 and your bog standard 8 would be two thirds of the way toward what I'm proposing.
On the basis that the big European teams will keep beating us up then we have to come up with ways to counter that.
It's up to our coaches and players to adapt and I think that they have the capacity to do so.
Jack Conan can be our 6 but as a Tadg Beirne type 6. Ross Murphy looks to have the capacity to adapt to that type of role too.
I've know doubt that Lancaster is eminently qualified to make it happen.
The alternative is to keep failing at the sharp end of the HCC stages.

I don't really know what you're proposing here?! Play Jack Conan or Molony at 6? That's going to help us stop 'failing at the sharp end of the HCC'?

Ireland with Beirne at 6, VDF at 7 and Doris 8 is probably our best backrow, because it's balanced, physical, has lots of turnover threat and you've three guys playing in probably their best positions. How does that tally with your idea of 'a Leinster BR of Doris, Ruddock, Conan and Deegan in whatever combination'?

I'm proposing experimenting.
I'm not hung up on which player plays which position.
The only restrictions are big and powerful.
After that it's up to the players and coaches to make it happen.

[wixfjord]

I'm proposing experimenting.
I'm not hung up on which player plays which position.
The only restrictions are big and powerful.
After that it's up to the players and coaches to make it happen.

It's not really a detailed or coherent plan to say 'experiment a bit there lads, just throw in a few big and powerful fellas and make it happen' though is it?

What are you basing the idea that a backrow of 'Doris, Ruddock, Conan and Deegan in whatever combination works best'?

Or that the 'days of a specialist groundhog aka JVDF are numbered'?
(I wouldn't say JVDF is a specialist groundhog by any means by the way, but that's another sceal!)

By trying to play a power game we don't have the players for we're limiting ourselves. Our best backrow is a blindside who can jump, hit hard and carry dirty ball, a 7 who leads the line, is a turnover threat and carries/links and an 8 who does a mix of all of that.

That's probably some combo of Ruddock/Murphy (maybe Soroka), Connors/VDF/Penny, Doris/Conan/Deegan in tandem.

It's not Rhys/Molony and two 8s who we're playing because they're 'big and powerful'

[Oldschool]

I'm proposing experimenting.
I'm not hung up on which player plays which position.
The only restrictions are big and powerful.
After that it's up to the players and coaches to make it happen.

It's not really a detailed or coherent plan to say 'experiment a bit there lads, just throw in a few big and powerful fellas and make it happen' though is it?

What are you basing the idea that a backrow of 'Doris, Ruddock, Conan and Deegan in whatever combination works best'?

Or that the 'days of a specialist groundhog aka JVDF are numbered'?
(I wouldn't say JVDF is a specialist groundhog by any means by the way, but that's another sceal!)

By trying to play a power game we don't have the players for we're limiting ourselves. Our best backrow is a blindside who can jump, hit hard and carry dirty ball, a 7 who leads the line, is a turnover threat and carries/links and an 8 who does a mix of all of that.

That's probably some combo of Ruddock/Murphy (maybe Soroka), Connors/VDF/Penny, Doris/Conan/Deegan in tandem.

It's not Rhys/Molony and two 8s who we're playing because they're 'big and powerful'

Don't know where you getting the Molony bit because I don't see him in a BR row role at all. If I mentioned him as a BR option then it was a typo and I'm happy to correct it.
As I said the idealised 7 role would be eliminated.

[wixfjord]

I'm proposing experimenting.
I'm not hung up on which player plays which position.
The only restrictions are big and powerful.
After that it's up to the players and coaches to make it happen.

It's not really a detailed or coherent plan to say 'experiment a bit there lads, just throw in a few big and powerful fellas and make it happen' though is it?

What are you basing the idea that a backrow of 'Doris, Ruddock, Conan and Deegan in whatever combination works best'?

Or that the 'days of a specialist groundhog aka JVDF are numbered'?
(I wouldn't say JVDF is a specialist groundhog by any means by the way, but that's another sceal!)

By trying to play a power game we don't have the players for we're limiting ourselves. Our best backrow is a blindside who can jump, hit hard and carry dirty ball, a 7 who leads the line, is a turnover threat and carries/links and an 8 who does a mix of all of that.

That's probably some combo of Ruddock/Murphy (maybe Soroka), Connors/VDF/Penny, Doris/Conan/Deegan in tandem.

It's not Rhys/Molony and two 8s who we're playing because they're 'big and powerful'

Don't know where you getting the Molony bit because I don't see him in a BR row role at all. If I mentioned him as a BR option then it was a typo and I'm happy to correct it.
As I said the idealised 7 role would be eliminated.

You said Ross Murphy, maybe you meant Josh Murphy instead of Ross Molony? Or some sort of weird Michaels hybrid that they're breeding!

[ronk]

I think this is a Tom Curry discussion. The idea of the current ideal of a 7 being someone most focused on tackling, but shorter and more agile than the super sized other players.

Josh is more of a press defender than a 7. He's chasing the outhalf to pressure him and shut him down. A guy like Curry wants to lay a big hit and tends to mark the big ball carriers. We had that with Sean O'Brien. Connors is the guy we have now if we want to play that game.

I like vdF. I'm in no rush to replace him. He's a versatile all rounder .

[Oldschool]

I think this is a Tom Curry discussion. The idea of the current ideal of a 7 being someone most focused on tackling, but shorter and more agile than the super sized other players.

Josh is more of a press defender than a 7. He's chasing the outhalf to pressure him and shut him down. A guy like Curry wants to lay a big hit and tends to mark the big ball carriers. We had that with Sean O'Brien. Connors is the guy we have now if we want to play that game.

I like vdF. I'm in no rush to replace him. He's a versatile all rounder .

Huge fan of JVDF but....
Wouldn't consider Connors for the the type of BR that is needed, he just doesn't have the kind of power that Doris, Conan or Ruddock can generate.
Yep Josh not Ross Murphy.
Ireland could actually think about playing Beirne as a 7 although obviously Munster would have to pick him there which is unlikely given POM.
What we do know is that the status quo doesn't work when we come up against the big teams so we have to think about alternatives.
That same argument applies to the national team and all the other provinces.
The BR players we have at our disposal are more than capable of adapting.

[wixfjord]

I'm not sure why you'd pick out our backrow as the key issue of what 'doesn't work against big teams' though.

That would probably be the last place to look.

Second row, scrumhalf and our attacking play would be far higher up that list.

Putting a big guy at 7 who hasn't played there before isn't the answer imo.

[Oldschool]

I'm not sure why you'd pick out our backrow as the key issue of what 'doesn't work against big teams' though.

That would probably be the last place to look.

Second row, scrumhalf and our attacking play would be far higher up that list.

Putting a big guy at 7 who hasn't played there before isn't the answer imo.

We won't know until we try.
Think you might be misunderstanding the point.
It's not a criticism of the BR it's looking at where and how to get more power into the pack and the BR strikes me as the most likely place.

[Laighin Break]

I'm not agreeing with this back row proposal, but in fairness Ruddock has played 7, at international level no less, and had a cracking game. Many years ago of course

[ronk]

We have tried. In recent years we put Ruddock and Deegan in at 7 because we were short, probably others.

Not sure what the supposed benefit is. We dont have the depth to put 5 locks on the park and there are diminishing returns for height. Adding a 3rd primary jumper is easy and often effective, adding a 5th is pointless.

[wixfjord]

I'm not agreeing with this back row proposal, but in fairness Ruddock has played 7, at international level no less, and had a cracking game. Many years ago of course

Right, but if you play Ruddock at 7, then you need to play Doris or Deegan or Conan out of position at 6.

I just don't think there's much logic to this 'we need more size in the backrow' idea. Don't think that's where we're falling down at all.

[Oldschool]

I'm not agreeing with this back row proposal, but in fairness Ruddock has played 7, at international level no less, and had a cracking game. Many years ago of course

Right, but if you play Ruddock at 7, then you need to play Doris or Deegan or Conan out of position at 6.

I just don't think there's much logic to this 'we need more size in the backrow' idea. Don't think that's where we're falling down at all.

That's the whole point isn't it, we're falling down elsewhere and we don't have a quick fix so we have to try things to alleviate problems elsewhere.
BTW playing Deegan or any other non 7 at 7 for a couple of games and making judgements on that basis is guaranteeing failure.
It's like the Ward at ten Campbell at 12 experiment. Tried once and deemed a failure.
That says more about the selectors than it does about Ward and Campbell.

[ronk]

We need to be at our best to beat the best teams. We're not going to out Saracens Saracens. If we give up our strengths we become easier to beat, not harder.

We had a specialist contact skills work. We've been able to match bigger sides by moving them around, both the point of contact by spreading play and at the point of contact with good footwork.

We need to improve to win the HC but going too far in the other direction isn't the way. Really good example was the time D'Arcy put on loads of muscle for the RWC. He lost agility and players made cleaner hits on him so he was less effective at contact. He still wasn't big enough to bulldoze and now he couldnt go around either. We've seen it many times where players like Toner and Healy shed weight having bulked up and played much better. It might be that Ryan's form issues stem from the same but I'm not sure.

A winning system is one that lets players do what they're good at.

Leinster at the moment have the top 3 (at least) 7s in the country. Many will disagree but our best 6 is the 3rd best blindside, going on apparent pecking order.

As have 2 of the top 3 8s.

Recently, England had success with 2 7s. If injuries had allowed it to be a relevant question we might have gone down that road at least some of the time.

Without experimenting, we have a 6ft 4 (stats may not be accurate) openside who can tackle anyone to a standstill.

[Oldschool]

We need to be at our best to beat the best teams. We're not going to out Saracens Saracens. If we give up our strengths we become easier to beat, not harder.

We had a specialist contact skills work. We've been able to match bigger sides by moving them around, both the point of contact by spreading play and at the point of contact with good footwork.

We need to improve to win the HC but going too far in the other direction isn't the way. Really good example was the time D'Arcy put on loads of muscle for the RWC. He lost agility and players made cleaner hits on him so he was less effective at contact. He still wasn't big enough to bulldoze and now he couldnt go around either. We've seen it many times where players like Toner and Healy shed weight having bulked up and played much better. It might be that Ryan's form issues stem from the same but I'm not sure.

A winning system is one that lets players do what they're good at.

Leinster at the moment have the top 3 (at least) 7s in the country. Many will disagree but our best 6 is the 3rd best blindside, going on apparent pecking order.

As have 2 of the top 3 8s.

Recently, England had success with 2 7s. If injuries had allowed it to be a relevant question we might have gone down that road at least some of the time.

Without experimenting, we have a 6ft 4 (stats may not be accurate) openside who can tackle anyone to a standstill.

The bigger sides particularly the French sides have become a lot fitter and moving them around isn't a solution anymore.
However you're right we do need to work on our skills, passing and offloading in particular but not exclusively.
Nobody is talking a bout bulking up our back row players, aka D'Arcy or any other player, just using the naturally bigger ones.
A winning system requires to be just that.
We don't have an engine room trio to give us a winning system so we have to do something that might make up the shortfall.
Leinster may well have the best 7's in the country but they are not the solution.
England had success with two 7s because they have the type of engine room that we don't.
We are trying to have success with two 5's basically and that means we can't afford one 7 never mind two.
The issue really is what combination of 6s and 8s will give us the best outcome both as a BR and giving us more power.
That's what the debate should really be about because the same old same old isn't working.

[mildlyinterested]

lots of rumours going around that there will be several players departing from leinsters backrow.

[wixfjord]

lots of rumours going around that there will be several players departing from leinsters backrow.

Yes, according to a poster on Planet Rugby, which is where I assume you're taking that info from:

Dooley, Cronin, Vakh, Toner, Jack Dune, Charlie Ryan, Leavy, Josh Murphy (confirmed) and Deegan.
Ross to France

No idea how true that is or not.

Certainly Leavy, Deegan, Murphy would be the three most likely losses from backrow.