Pre-Season 2022/23

[Theleinsterlad]

Any links online to watching a replay of the match?

[D4surfer]

Any links online to watching a replay of the match?

The whole match is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiS-37n-bI

[Serb]

France star Vakatawa forced to retire from rugby aged 30

https://the42.ie/5858096

Absolutely brutal for the player. No idea what his issues are but hope he’s ok. He played 26 games last season and was playing as recently as July so a bit of a shock.

Obviously the impact for Leinster is we will face Racing without him in December.

[blockhead]

France star Vakatawa forced to retire from rugby aged 30

https://the42.ie/5858096

Absolutely brutal for the player. No idea what his issues are but hope he’s ok. He played 26 games last season and was playing as recently as July so a bit of a shock.

Obviously the impact for Leinster is we will face Racing without him in December.

WOW!
Beast of a player. Awful shame.

[Laighin Break]

Any links online to watching a replay of the match?

The whole match is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiS-37n-bI

If anyone else is just interested in a quick glance, here are the main events and their times (including some lead time):
00:30: McKee try
16:45: Quins try
31: Quins try
36: Nice break that ultimately leads to 38:40: Milne try (after some reset scrums)
50: McCarthy try
52:20: Quins try
64: Lovely kick from Prendergast and chase from Osbourne that ultimately leads to 66: Penny try

Interestingly 2 of Quins' tries came from poor kicks from our scrum-halves.

[wixfjord]

That Deegan break was beautiful.

He looked very powerful when he came in. Hopefully he gets a good run at the start of the season.

[the spoofer]

Milne certainly stabilised the scrum when he came on.

Negatives
CN threw 3 or 4 ground balls. JJ goes to ground a bit easy for such a big man. Will Connors missed a tackle for the first time in 4 years.

Positives

A W, game time for loads of lads, no serious injuries,

[hugonaut]

Any links online to watching a replay of the match?

The whole match is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiS-37n-bI

If anyone else is just interested in a quick glance, here are the main events and their times (including some lead time):
00:30: McKee try
16:45: Quins try
31: Quins try
36: Nice break that ultimately leads to 38:40: Milne try (after some reset scrums)
50: McCarthy try
52:20: Quins try
64: Lovely kick from Prendergast and chase from Osbourne that ultimately leads to 66: Penny try

Interestingly 2 of Quins' tries came from poor kicks from our scrum-halves.

Thanks for these, very useful.

[wixfjord]

Barron had a good game when he came in too. Throwing pretty good, nice pace in the carry and two turnovers.

[Theleinsterlad]

Great to see the team back after the long summer break. Thought our two new signings both showed promise with their 40 minute stint. Milne’s cred has gone up on his ability to lock out the scrum. Deegan looked very impressive, it would be great to see him have a stormer of a season this year injury free. Osbourne looks like he is coming in very nicely - looked a lot more assured and his boot is just a brilliant weapon to have

Plus our depth at hooker now is ridiculous, McKee and Barron both look naturals

[Ruckedtobits]

Great to see the team back after the long summer break. Thought our two new signings both showed promise with their 40 minute stint. Milne’s cred has gone up on his ability to lock out the scrum. Deegan looked very impressive, it would be great to see him have a stormer of a season this year injury free. Osbourne looks like he is coming in very nicely - looked a lot more assured and his boot is just a brilliant weapon to have

Plus our depth at hooker now is ridiculous, McKee and Barron both look naturals

Not convinced that some of the first-half scrum problems weren't partly down to McKee. Collier is a big, strong THP but when he is allowed drive right across on our hooker without response from either LHP or our No 2, there's something wrong.

I hope our Scrum Coach is working hard on these aspects. Although Milne was much better in 2nd half, we've had this problem before, sometimes even with Porter playing.

The classic response (40 years ago) was for the LHP to let the opposition No 3 come across him and then drop the head into his rib-cage / armpit / breast-bone and try to get under him and give him a flying lesson. At best, his own second-row shunted him upwards, next best, No 3 got bruised or cracked ribs or finally, their front-five got driven into a heap on their LHP and our LHP finished it off collapsing on top of their THP, with his knees in all the best places

[LeinsterLeader]

Any links online to watching a replay of the match?

The whole match is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRiS-37n-bI

Ah balls! I bought it off the website yesterday. That's €3.50 I could have used to heat my house for about 2 seconds

[Experimental]

Very sorry to hear about Vakatawa, very exciting player to watch, best of luck to him

[Theleinsterlad]

Great to see the team back after the long summer break. Thought our two new signings both showed promise with their 40 minute stint. Milne’s cred has gone up on his ability to lock out the scrum. Deegan looked very impressive, it would be great to see him have a stormer of a season this year injury free. Osbourne looks like he is coming in very nicely - looked a lot more assured and his boot is just a brilliant weapon to have

Plus our depth at hooker now is ridiculous, McKee and Barron both look naturals

Not convinced that some of the first-half scrum problems weren't partly down to McKee. Collier is a big, strong THP but when he is allowed drive right across on our hooker without response from either LHP or our No 2, there's something wrong.

I hope our Scrum Coach is working hard on these aspects. Although Milne was much better in 2nd half, we've had this problem before, sometimes even with Porter playing.

The classic response (40 years ago) was for the LHP to let the opposition No 3 come across him and then drop the head into his rib-cage / armpit / breast-bone and try to get under him and give him a flying lesson. At best, his own second-row shunted him upwards, next best, No 3 got bruised or cracked ribs or finally, their front-five got driven into a heap on their LHP and our LHP finished it off collapsing on top of their THP, with his knees in all the best places

I don’t understand our scrummaging performances since Mcbride has come in. When he was announced I was really chuffed as he seemed to take a pack of Welsh pack misfits and turn them into an impressive unit whenever the six nations came around. I just haven’t seen that in our pack

[curates_egg]

Great to see the team back after the long summer break. Thought our two new signings both showed promise with their 40 minute stint. Milne’s cred has gone up on his ability to lock out the scrum. Deegan looked very impressive, it would be great to see him have a stormer of a season this year injury free. Osbourne looks like he is coming in very nicely - looked a lot more assured and his boot is just a brilliant weapon to have

Plus our depth at hooker now is ridiculous, McKee and Barron both look naturals

Not convinced that some of the first-half scrum problems weren't partly down to McKee. Collier is a big, strong THP but when he is allowed drive right across on our hooker without response from either LHP or our No 2, there's something wrong.

I hope our Scrum Coach is working hard on these aspects. Although Milne was much better in 2nd half, we've had this problem before, sometimes even with Porter playing.

The classic response (40 years ago) was for the LHP to let the opposition No 3 come across him and then drop the head into his rib-cage / armpit / breast-bone and try to get under him and give him a flying lesson. At best, his own second-row shunted him upwards, next best, No 3 got bruised or cracked ribs or finally, their front-five got driven into a heap on their LHP and our LHP finished it off collapsing on top of their THP, with his knees in all the best places

I don’t understand our scrummaging performances since Mcbride has come in. When he was announced I was really chuffed as he seemed to take a pack of Welsh pack misfits and turn them into an impressive unit whenever the six nations came around. I just haven’t seen that in our pack

There were lots of mitigating factors last year: young/breakthrough hookers, Porter switching sides, Alalatoa learning the NH ropes; no real tighthead lock. All those excuses are now gone, so we need to see a better setpiece this year.

[Theleinsterlad]

Anyone got any details on the Leinster v con game this weekend? Is it at Donnybrook? Kick off 1.30?

[cormac]

Perhaps fortunate that our first two games of the season are against Italian opposition for more reasons than one might normally assume.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Perhaps fortunate that our first two games of the season are against Italian opposition for more reasons than one might normally assume.

I read that something had changed recently and that the death of a monarch or PM would just result in a day of mourning on the same day as the funeral so not sure how much disruption there'd be. There are a lot of rumours flying around though so hard to know what the reality is.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Perhaps fortunate that our first two games of the season are against Italian opposition for more reasons than one might normally assume.

I read that something had changed recently and that the death of a monarch or PM would just result in a day of mourning on the same day as the funeral so not sure how much disruption there'd be. There are a lot of rumours flying around though so hard to know what the reality is.

This does appear to be the case and yet some have cancelled events and some haven't. Some really crazy decisions being made, I really can't understand why you'd cancel an event when you're not obliged to and also have the out that other sporting bodies haven't either. I also don't understand why things would be cancelled for today but be okay to resume tomorrow. I would also have thought that covid showed that events where big groups of people can gather together are really important and powerful so would surely be more appropriate and proactive in terms of expressing grief or thanks than people cancelling plans and having f%~k all to do. Plus it would appear that the overwhelming majority of fans want events to go ahead as normal so I doubt there'd be a PR backlash, and they've already had the Europa and Conference League games go ahead last night so now it's more jarring to cancel things than just go ahead with them.

I'm not downplaying the significance of what has happened and appreciate it needs to be marked, but the way certain sporting bodies have gone about it is just bizarre.

[cormac]

It's a bit odd that all rugby in NI, Wales and Scotland has been cancelled this weekend but not in England, where they've only called off games that were scheduled to be played today.