Flash Gordon wrote: ↑September 19th, 2022, 4:28 pm
hugonaut wrote: ↑September 19th, 2022, 12:10 pm
Flash Gordon wrote: ↑September 19th, 2022, 9:52 am
Otherwise, we played some very good rugby in the first half and Jenkins was really excellent, the pack really dragged us away with that win our backline were as poor as I've seen. Hopefully that was a sign of things to come from Jenkins who was excellent. Our defensive work was really poor as the stats show. I see Max O'Reilly and Rob Russell getting a lot of criticism here Ngatai also looked a bit lost in the system. Hopefully the collective performance was down to a lack of game time and pre-season games.
Ngatai ran for the most metres, beat the most defenders, made the most offloads, carried the most, passed the most and made the most tackles of any of our three quarters.
Some of those are as a function of the position he plays [you are very likely going to make more tackles at No12 in any game than you are as a winger or an outside centre], but most of them were as a result of him simply playing better than the players around him. He wasn't the problem. He had a very young player outside him having a mixed game and two players further outside who were playing like drains.
We had practically no threat in the outside backs. Dave Kearney in his 30s has become a great finisher and try-scorer [something which he wasn't in his 20s] but he's not going to make multiple line-breaks for you over the course of the game.
Yes of course on the 12 position and tackles.
I was referring to the defensive system and how he operated - it's very understandable that he will need a couple of games. My recollection is that he got taken out by a simple skip pass for the first try, either him or Ross Byrne was in the wrong position for the 2nd because they ran into each other and Charlie went down and on the 4th I thought he was in no man's land - he looked knackered at that stage and basically jogged up to the line - then Osborne missed his tackle.
Not at all worried about the guy because he's a good player but the difference in defensive linespeed between Henshaw/Ringrose and the two lads last weekend was pretty significant.
Relooking at first try, I don't think you can blame him for that. He has to take the 13 who is running a dummy flat line, Osborne/Russell & MOR are just totally disconnected outside him.
The second try was the cross kick, nothing to do with Ngatai/Byrne who both are taking their inside men and again Osborne/DK/MOR are just not connected at all. DK bites in and the kick is bang on so leaves an overlap. Ngatai gets bumped by the Zebre player but wasn't going to get near the touchdown in any case.
On the fourth again it's really Osborne's issue. He fails to follow Ngatai (who has to cover the opposing attackers that have constricted into a pod) in and leaves a big hole for their backrow to run into between 12 & 13. He then gets ran over one on one. There's no real danger in this instance as Leinster have a 4 on 2 on the outside, just a missed one on one tackle.
What I will say about the last one is I'm not sure how Osborne is in the 13 channel, since Frawley was on at that stage and Osborne went to 15 I think?
If you look at a phase earlier, Big Mike is also left defending at pillar with a man outside him because Russell isn't on the wing. At that stage our guys didn't really know who was defending where it seems.