Glasgow at Home, Sunday the 28th, 5.30pm

[wixfjord]

Nakarawa was shockingly poor. Looked totally disinterested and kept trying the speculative high offload despite being stripped twice. Looks well overweight too.

I'd be slightly worried if I were an Ulster fan.

He'll be 33 by the time he lands too. Will need plenty of fitness work to get himself in any sort of shape.

[wixfjord]

Loved Soroka's kick by the way! Spotted the space and went for it! Great confidence for a lad 5 mins into his debut!

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Nakarawa was shockingly poor. Looked totally disinterested and kept trying the speculative high offload despite being stripped twice. Looks well overweight too.

I'd be slightly worried if I were an Ulster fan.

He'll be 33 by the time he lands too. Will need plenty of fitness work to get himself in any sort of shape.

Agree with you but he’s missed a lot of rugby so maybe a run of games will help...then again being out for ages is a concern in itself.

Think he should be cited for a hit in the lead up to the PT as well. Looked bad, was surprised he didn’t do damage.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Congrats to Alex Soroka on making his debut tonight.

Alex was 4 years old when Devin Toner and Johnny Sexton both made their debuts at home to Borders in Jan 2006.

My brain can’t compute this.

[JohnB]

The enduring sense of victim hood emanating from the Glasgow Warriors forum is very tiresome. Their players are never to blame for any ills that befall them.

[Morf]

Loved Soroka's kick by the way! Spotted the space and went for it! Great confidence for a lad 5 mins into his debut!

Was the lost ball in the maul on him? The talking to he got from Penny after the scrum call suggested it might have been on him and the transfer.

[Laighin Break]

Loved Soroka's kick by the way! Spotted the space and went for it! Great confidence for a lad 5 mins into his debut!

It was much better than Hawkshaw's kicking funnily enough. Almost as good as Dev's kick at the end of the game.

[erskinechilders]

The drop off when Byrne went off was huge. Hawkshaw looks a decent prospect but he's not a 10. The game management and kicking disappeared with Byrne. Jesus I hope Byrne recovers in time for Uster, he looked excellent last night.

Penny was brilliant, although I'd love to see him given the Hooper/ McReight role in defence. He obviously had a role last night playing as an 8 and made 18 tackles which was excellent, but he looks to me to be the most natural jackler ( his height / stockiness / stength ). Give him a free role to go hunting turnovers. We badly need one since Leavy got injured. Both Connors & VDF are excellent 7's but neither are natural jacklers.

I thought Soroka looked very tidy too. Josh Murphy was very good again but jesus he goes through spells in the game of giving away penalties. He gave away 3 in a 10 minute spell against Dragons and did the same again last night. Yellow card waiting to happen in the bigger games.

[mildlyinterested]

Leinster clearly don't want players hunting for turnovers.

[erskinechilders]

Leinster clearly don't want players hunting for turnovers.

I can't really understand why. We've got a decent defence but I still think we need to get to that next level. We have the 2nd least turnovers in the Pro 14 with 63, only Edinburgh have less with 55. Could you shed more light on our defensive system?

[joooooe]

Penny's match figures from Cian Treacy:

Scott Penny's numbers from Leinster's win over Glasgow:

2 tries (9th of the season, now joint top PRO14 scorer)
17 carries
34 Metres made
2 Offloads
18 Tackles
1 Turnover
1 Man-of-the match award

Penny has played 8 games this season and scored in 7 of them.

Ireland call up?

No but someone in the media in next day or so is gonna say "he's not getting enough game time so get him down to Munster to help Salanoa with the spreadsheet he's using to calculate his game time"

[Blueberry]

The drop off when Byrne went off was huge. Hawkshaw looks a decent prospect but he's not a 10. The game management and kicking disappeared with Byrne. Jesus I hope Byrne recovers in time for Uster, he looked excellent last night.

Penny was brilliant, although I'd love to see him given the Hooper/ McReight role in defence. He obviously had a role last night playing as an 8 and made 18 tackles which was excellent, but he looks to me to be the most natural jackler ( his height / stockiness / stength ). Give him a free role to go hunting turnovers. We badly need one since Leavy got injured. Both Connors & VDF are excellent 7's but neither are natural jacklers.

I thought Soroka looked very tidy too. Josh Murphy was very good again but jesus he goes through spells in the game of giving away penalties. He gave away 3 in a 10 minute spell against Dragons and did the same again last night. Yellow card waiting to happen in the bigger games.

Early days for Hawkshaw, needs a lot more time. Thought Harry was exceptional so it's a high bar for Hawkshaw. What I do see is one hard carrying lump happy to run at half gaps so yes maybe not a 10 but definitely a prospect.

[Blueberry]

Leinster clearly don't want players hunting for turnovers.

I can't really understand why. We've got a decent defence but I still think we need to get to that next level. We have the 2nd least turnovers in the Pro 14 with 63, only Edinburgh have less with 55. Could you shed more light on our defensive system?

Think there is a degree of absolutely trusting our defence and waiting for a mistake and or forcing the opposition to kick. Endlessly pouring into the breakdown looking for turnovers is a high risk game, penalties, gaps etc. Any problems we had with Glasgow came from missed tackles, couple of the young lads had howlers which cost us tries v Glasgow. Slightly improve our tackle count v Glasgow and they may have scored nothing or perhaps one try. Can't really argue with that while you are rattling in tries at the other end.

[hugonaut]

Dan impressed me again when he came on. His open field play with ball in hand is great to watch. Thought a couple of the older generation looked way off the pace. Think thats the first game I’ve seen where Cronin is not explosive in. Toner also was looking out on his feet, but like the true warrior he is he kept trying to make tackles to the end. Fardy looked out in the 1st half but in fairness think he put in a shift in the 2nd half

With the exception of Dooley, it was a real Dad's Army of a front five: Fardy is 36, Cro, Dev and Bentos are 34. It looks like we will be turning over a lot of that front five at the end of the season, so there's a good bit of re-building work ahead.

The value that Harry Byrne brings is immense. He makes every player in the backline look better and makes the team runs much more smoothly and effectively when he's in at No10. As somebody said above, Hawkshaw looks like a good rugby player, but at this stage of his career he is nowhere near Harry's level as an outhalf. With that said, I like his moxie. He's got the competitive edge you're looking for in a Leinster player.

Luke McGrath is having a great season for us. It's between him and Rhys for our Player of the Year thus far.

[Blueberry]

Dan impressed me again when he came on. His open field play with ball in hand is great to watch. Thought a couple of the older generation looked way off the pace. Think thats the first game I’ve seen where Cronin is not explosive in. Toner also was looking out on his feet, but like the true warrior he is he kept trying to make tackles to the end. Fardy looked out in the 1st half but in fairness think he put in a shift in the 2nd half

With the exception of Dooley, it was a real Dad's Army of a front five: Fardy is 36, Cro, Dev and Bentos are 34. It looks like we will be turning over a lot of that front five at the end of the season, so there's a good bit of re-building work ahead.

The value that Harry Byrne brings is immense. He makes every player in the backline look better and makes the team runs much more smoothly and effectively when he's in at No10. As somebody said above, Hawkshaw looks like a good rugby player, but at this stage of his career he is nowhere near Harry's level as an outhalf. With that said, I like his moxie. He's got the competitive edge you're looking for in a Leinster player.

Luke McGrath is having a great season for us. It's between him and Rhys for our Player of the Year thus far.

Yeah Luke has been exceptional, entirely agree. Ruddock too.....

[Dave Cahill]

The assessments of Hawkshaw at 10 are wildly premature.

The guy has played in six matches for less than two hours pitch time. Of that, 80 minutes or so were spent at outhalf across three or four games. To make any kind of judgement on whether he is or isn't going to be an outhalf for Leinster based on that is impossible.

[riocard911]

The assessments of Hawkshaw at 10 are wildly premature.

The guy has played in six matches for less than two hours pitch time. Of that, 80 minutes or so were spent at outhalf across three or four games. To make any kind of judgement on whether he is or isn't going to be an outhalf for Leinster based on that is impossible.

Definitely. Had a bit of a mixed bag. Okay, he missed a pressure peno, but that rip out of the maul and then making a dash for the opposition line with the ball under his arm was one for the highlights reel. His pass in the build up for Luke McGrath's try was very good too.

I also thought Dan Sheehan made serious impact off the bench, including a brilliant pass in the course of fine shift from defence to attack by himself, Fardy and JO'B for the Kelleher try in the dying minutes of the game.

[LeinsterLeader]

The assessments of Hawkshaw at 10 are wildly premature.

The guy has played in six matches for less than two hours pitch time. Of that, 80 minutes or so were spent at outhalf across three or four games. To make any kind of judgement on whether he is or isn't going to be an outhalf for Leinster based on that is impossible.

Have to agree with this Dave. The people who don't think he'll make it at 10 may very well be proved right, but his body of work at 10 (even for the 'A' team) is quite small. Extremely unfair to judge him on it yet. Plus he would be a real out and out 'running 10' which would be something different and give us a different option

[LeRouxIsPHat]

From my POV it’s based on his school days and the 20’s as well. Still a small body of work but it’s over a long period of time.

He’s got a lot going for him technically, athletically and he’s clearly a leader but for whatever reason he just doesn’t play like a ten IMO. He just strikes me as a guy who needs a good ten to get the best out of him rather than him being a ten who gets the best out of others, in fact I think he generally makes them worse.

[Serb]

Maybe this is a bit off topic for the match thread, but the conversation around the jackal here is interesting. I agree that we don’t appear to target the ball in the ruck as a tactic, but I’m also interested in the reason why not.

In my head, I’m guessing there are maybe three reasons why we don’t specifically target it. It can suck players into the ruck and out of the defensive line, we don’t have many natural players who can challenge at the ruck (i.e. you need multiple threats, otherwise it’s too easy to mark the one lad who is actually good at winning turnovers, similar to how Leinster marked Beirne vs Scarlets in the euro semi final), and maybe it’s a high injury risk when you’re getting twisted and rolled all over the place in the clear out.

Our defence is good, so it’s hard to argue against the system, but having players who can pull off a good jackal is such a leveller. A good example recently is the Munster game. We had them under the kosh on their line twice in that game and both times Beirne pulled off ridiculous steals. We had a lot of players to worry about with POM and Stander also being excellent in that department, so it’s tough to always spot the threat in time.

There’s definitely a bunch of nuance I don’t understand here, but I don’t see the trade off that Munster have made to turn the jackal into such a weapon. Their defence remains very good, is it just that they happen to have the players in situ to try this kind of thing?