Leinster vs Ulster, RDS, 27/11/21, 8pm

[Dave Cahill]

Ulster by far the better team. Well deserved win.

+1

[Avenger]

Yep. Comprehensively the better side on the night.
Fair play.

[Fan with smartphone]

Yeah Ulster played really well and weren’t going to be pushed around this time. Still think Penny is the real deal FWIW, but every Ulster player played well pretty much.

[Blueberry]

Johnny should be unleashed to conduct the review on Monday. He would have some definite views on the performances of so many players tonight. Completely unacceptable

+1 keep J10 up all Sunday night, don't give him a coffee and unleash him on Monday 8am on a 3 hour review....

[Oldschoolsocks]

Well you win or you learn, there’ll be a fair few lessons from that performance…

[Ruckedtobits]

Ulster schooled us in line-out and maul. Their mid-field defended really well.

Frawley, Ross Moloney and Adam Byrne produced decent performances Treacy & Harry Byrne were very poor. Ulster were well drilled, knew what they wanted to do and despite an excellent Leinster defensive set in first 15 mins, they kept coming with ball in hand.

There's a big gap between our first & second packs.

Well done Ulster and I hope they have a few more of those displays in the tank.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I was disappointed with our defence from the off even in those long defensive sets. The odd big hit but by and large we were just making soak tackles, standing too deep, and being slow to get back into the line.

Our breakdown work was dreadful, fellas missing clearouts or not even bothering to join the ruck. Agree with FWS about Penny, thought he played very well. Furlong, Molony, and Connors too but the rest of the forwards were well below par.

Even allowing for those issues at the breakdown, Luke’s passing was terrible and his breaking wasn’t up to his recent standards. Harry had a mare and I’m sure he’ll cop a lot of flak but Ross was poor too and there were problems all over the place. JOB’s positioning was terrible, haven’t noticed it with him before so hopefully just a once off but he had a bad game I thought. Adam played well IMO and I hope he gets a start in Europe.

The blacks alignment seemed off. Whatever about Frawley and TOB throwing those stupid passes at the end, why were they so far away from each other in the first place? That summed us up I think. Instead of TOB hitting the line he was drifting on to a hospital pass and we’d have been mullered at the breakdown anyway just like we were all game.

A bad day but we’ll be much better with some more carriers back in the pack and we won’t play as badly any time soon. Murphy had a shocker as well. We deserved to lose but he really was abysmal.

Impressed by a lot of the younger Ulster players. A bit more dog in them than previous teams but kept their heads as well.

[Dexter]

I was disappointed with our defence from the off even in those long defensive sets. The odd big hit but by and large we were just making soak tackles, standing too deep, and being slow to get back into the line.

Our breakdown work was dreadful, fellas missing clearouts or not even bothering to join the ruck. Agree with FWS about Penny, thought he played very well. Furlong, Molony, and Connors too but the rest of the forwards were well below par.

Even allowing for those issues at the breakdown, Luke’s passing was terrible and his breaking wasn’t up to his recent standards. Harry had a mare and I’m sure he’ll cop a lot of flak but Ross was poor too and there were problems all over the place. JOB’s positioning was terrible, haven’t noticed it with him before so hopefully just a once off but he had a bad game I thought. Adam played well IMO and I hope he gets a start in Europe.

The blacks alignment seemed off. Whatever about Frawley and TOB throwing those stupid passes at the end, why were they so far away from each other in the first place? That summed us up I think. Instead of TOB hitting the line he was drifting on to a hospital pass and we’d have been mullered at the breakdown anyway just like we were all game.

A bad day but we’ll be much better with some more carriers back in the pack and we won’t play as badly any time soon. Murphy had a shocker as well. We deserved to lose but he really was abysmal.

Impressed by a lot of the younger Ulster players. A bit more dog in them than previous teams but kept their heads as well.

Agree with all this. The fact that they'll be bollocked out if it for the next two years will be worth the loss in long run.
Frank Murphy? You can only only control the controlables and a sh!t ref is not one of those, you have to find a way to overcome it.

[ronk]

Some bad refereeing decisions for sure but we were not accurate or consistent ourselves under pressure and we gave away some really stupid penalties, especially giving up easy points in a low scoring game.

There were a few stages where things just didn’t break for us or they broke on their advantage. On a different day it would be different. Harry Byrne also started with a Baird like error count.

I’m a bit concerned about our discipline.

Biggest thing is that our formerly well drilled rotation is struggling. It might settle over the season but right now we’re not there. A lot of guys are coming in cold, it’s not just the 5 week break: it’s the 2 weeks before than that a lot of these lads played. With regular game time a lot of those mistakes go away.

[injoewetrust]

Is it too late to teach McGrath to pass the ball at chest height in front of the player or have Ross even pretend he is not just going to shovel the ball along?

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[hugonaut]

Well you win or you learn, there’ll be a fair few lessons from that performance…

Absolutely. We don't lose many matches at home, so that one will go into the memory bank.

I thought there were some underwhelming performances from members of our pack - James Tracy, Ed Byrne, Max when he came on and, surprisingly, Rhys. We were beaten to the punch a good few times and came off second best up front.

Will Connors did very well off the bench and showed up a good few of his team-mates: he was playing with the sort of aggression and accuracy that they needed to show throughout. Good to have him back in the mix.

I can't remember a game in the last decade where we were held scoreless for 50+ minutes. Maybe it has happened before, but hopefully it will be a while before it happens again. Having that big '0' on the scoreboard for a long time isn't a comfortable feeling in the stands and I can't imagine that it is any better for the players. Maybe it will be a useful reminder to get the numbers up and running with place-kicks rather than playing to a lineout that was never accurate enough.

[Oldschool]

Well you win or you learn, there’ll be a fair few lessons from that performance…

Afraid I have to disagree.
Anything we learned from last night's match we already knew.
The only thing we got from last night's match as Leo put it was a "kick up the ar&s". A reminder!

[OTT]

Shocking bad stuff from us all evening. Ulster thoroughly deserved the win but thought they did it without having to get out of second gear (no offence meant to them by that either they did what they needed to do to beat us just that they along with us have a higher ceiling imo) which is really disappointing.

For most of the game the pack were waiting for the ball they hadn’t won yet at the break down and the back line looked like they had never played together (maybe they haven’t but you know what I mean) shovelling shite from left to right and right to left usually getting Jimmy O’Brien absolutely nailed when he saved the winger (Larmour or Byrne depending on the side) from getting buried into touch. I think we probably only got our try because we beat their defence by luck with the dreadful pass to Henshaw that meant he went over lower than he would have. Penny had one decent line break up the right wing in the second half and Frawley went through the odd gap usually supported by nobody. I can’t remember to many other ‘moments’, strange performance all round.

Not sure if you always need a good kick up the hole but we certainly got one and didn’t get to hide it with a robbed win at the end and instead blew even the BP. Some lads really need game time that they are not going to get and the others hopefully will use this performance to focus the mind on the next few weeks ahead, training should be spicy over the next few days you’d hope.

Well done to Ulster.

[Blue Man]

Wow, that was bad! Ulster were really well drilled and aggressive in defence, particularly in the 15 meter channel, which shut down our first pod of carriers really effectively. However, we showed a complete lack of control, an inability to react to the opposition defence or the referee’s interpretation and put in an 80 minutes littered with poor individual performances.
There was no shortage of talent in that Leinster side, Furlong, Molony, Rhys, Deegan, Luke, Henshaw and Larmour are all quality players but were all well short of their best and Luke, the backrow and Larmour were all terrible. Penny is an exciting rugby player who is capable of big moments, but for me, he’s an 8 trapped in a 7s body. Leinster were destroyed at the breakdown and I think that anytime Penny plays 7 this happens. The difference Connors made was enormous. Neither Byrne at 10 provided any control or game management. I’m starting to wonder whether Frawley, our standout player last night, is the best option to replace JS?
In the early part of the season there appeared to be an evolution in our play towards a deeper, wider alignment with plenty of decoys to keep the opposition guessing but last night, everything was telegraphed, flat and slow.
This coaching ticked has had some great days but the way the side played last night was an indictment of their work. Six days to turn things around…

[cormac]

There was no-one in our side who missed out on the recent Ireland squad whose performance yesterday evening would have had Andy Farrell questioning his decision. I expected a positive reaction from those who'd just missed out but it went the other way.

[Blueberry]

Certainly puts the pressure on. Connacht will be gunning for us and Munster in Thomond now becomes an important win v a nice bonus if we win it.

What surprised me a bit was the lack of support runners and slowness getting to the rucks and at times players loitering around the back of rucks picking daises. Strange lack of cohesion and energy. Serious drop off in some positions, Dev and Tracey particularly poor last night.

Anyway lots of material for a review session and better now than in a HEC game.

[OTT]

One thing that really was frustrating to watch. The Ulster defence was up so quick the whole time but there was a massive gap in behind them, Lowry and his winger were usually back covering for the 50-22 and it was crying out for a few chips over the rush defence where there was no one sweeping. I think (if I remember rightly) Frawley did one which he managed to get to himself but nobody else bothered chasing so we lost it but when a defence is up like that we should have been keeping them honest if Frank wasn’t willing to.

You could feel the malaise in the crowd with some of the stuff that looked simply like a lack of effort or appetite.

[Atlas]

I think a lot of players desperatly need consistent game time at a high level for their own development. HB, Jordan, Penny, JOB...to name a few.

Very difficult to see where they will get it though without injuries particularly if the South African games get cancelled.

[Ruckedtobits]

Murphy's refereeing is simply bad. In the first 8-minuute onslaught he awarded three incorrect penalties against Leinster in defence;

1. Dev tackles Carter with his body on top but rolling away, East to West, immediately. Carter pushes the ball beneath Dev body with a very deliberate action, rather than placing it for his scrum-half, on the very place from which Dev has removed his legs;
2. After the second line-out penalty, Herring has the ball at the back of Ulster maul, with three players on the ground at the back of the Leinster maul, all three, 2 Leinster 1 Ulster now no longer part of the maul as they are unbound and on the ground, Murphy blows a penalty against Penny and another Leinster forward for offside when both are clearly behind hindmost foot;
3. For the penalty under the posts, before Moloney gets a turnover - despite having his hands on the ground, Murphy blows another offside penalty, when Herring has already detached from maul and thus maul is over.

Murphy just wants to "catch out" players and award penalties. He has no feel for the game and is not accurate in his judgements of forward play. He referees with a scrum-half bias that opposition backrows 'are always offside', by definition.

[Barry]

Murphy's refereeing is simply bad. In the first 8-minuute onslaught he awarded three incorrect penalties against Leinster in defence;

1. Dev tackles Carter with his body on top but rolling away, East to West, immediately. Carter pushes the ball beneath Dev body with a very deliberate action, rather than placing it for his scrum-half, on the very place from which Dev has removed his legs;
2. After the second line-out penalty, Herring has the ball at the back of Ulster maul, with three players on the ground at the back of the Leinster maul, all three, 2 Leinster 1 Ulster now no longer part of the maul as they are unbound and on the ground, Murphy blows a penalty against Penny and another Leinster forward for offside when both are clearly behind hindmost foot;
3. For the penalty under the posts, before Moloney gets a turnover - despite having his hands on the ground, Murphy blows another offside penalty, when Herring has already detached from maul and thus maul is over.

Murphy just wants to "catch out" players and award penalties. He has no feel for the game and is not accurate in his judgements of forward play. He referees with a scrum-half bias that opposition backrows 'are always offside', by definition.

Better side won, no question but Murphy isn't just an awful ref he's blatantly biast against leinster and has been for years.

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