2nd minute of the game and looks fairly clear cut on that angle that it should have been red.
Same lad had an “accidental” head clash with Sexton later too.
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The Irish rugby media out looking for excuses. Big Tuesday session tomorrow should dig up a few more
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Gerry Thornley taking that defeat well.
Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions over an Anglo-French hegemony
Gerry Thornley
There’s losing, and then there’s losing to Saracens. When you think of it, their ongoing presence in the Heineken Champions Cup is like a student being caught cheating at the Leaving Cert, having his exams disqualified, and yet still going on to Trinity or UCD.
As expected, the absence of fans allowed a typically animated Saracens something approaching home advantage with their on- and off-field noise levels. A crowd of 51,700, with scarcely 1,500 travelling fans, would have mercifully drowned that out, and no one would have heard Billy Vunipola suggest to Johnny Sexton after the late, high hit by Michael Rhodes: “You need to go for a HIA bro.”
There’s no doubting they deserved to beat Leinster and earn their place in the semi-finals and if Racing 92 lost to them in Paris next Saturday there would be a certain irony in that.
Racing, after all, let Saracens off the hook in round six when leading 24-17 against a team reduced to 14 men by the first-half sending-off of Will Skelton.
Meanwhile, Leinster and their fans, along with Ulster and the rest of the Irish rugby supporters, are left on the outside looking in. Even with empty stadiums and Level 3 and a bit, the deflation is still palpable.
This is fuelled by the thought of the television audience on Virgin Media and Channel 4 next Saturday if Leinster had been hosting Racing (with no need for private gatherings to watch the game on BT Sport).
Instead, after 25 wins and one defeat, Leinster’s season ends in relative failure and it’s time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Pro14 is ill-equipped to prepare them for the Anglo-French big guns. Two Anglo-French semis in the Heineken Champions Cup, and two more in the Challenge Cup, heralds a new Anglo-French hegemony. Little Irish sides can’t cope with the big English bullies. And so on.
Weakest link
Certainly, if a league is as strong as its weakest link, then the sight of the Ospreys and the Southern Kings propping up the two conferences are not good portents.
It’s not just that the addition of the Kings and the Cheetahs (especially on their travels) have weakened the competition. The decline of the Ospreys, poorer in every sense from the days of Marty Holah, Jerry Collins and their home grown galacticos, has been compounded by Glasgow fading after losing Finn Russell, Stuart Hogg and the Grays.
Even so, there’s always a risk in jumping to conclusions based on one European campaign. It’s only a snapshot in history. Pretty much every time an Irish side, and by extension a Pro14 team, fails to reach the knockout stages or the semi-finals we hear of an era of Anglo-French dominance.
It’s never materialised, and it didn’t happen after the 2015-16 tournament, which was the last time the Premiership and the Top 14 carved up the semi-finals (and indeed the quarter-finals). What happened next? Leinster and Munster reached the semi-finals for each of the next three seasons, with Leinster reaching two finals and winning one of them.
For sure, Leinster’s defeat, along with Ulster losing 36-8 to Toulouse, is a sobering reality check. Taken in tandem with three Irish losses against England and Saracens’ defeat of Leinster in last year’s final, there’s also a trend.
However, last Saturday’s defeat did not feel like the physical bullying in those other beatings. Yes Saracens had the better of the collisions early on last Saturday, but it was nothing like on the scale of St James’ Park when Billy Vunipola and Skelton were human wrecking balls.
In fact, with Will Connors fulfilling his brief, the Saracens eight was restricted to 22 metres from 13 carries. His most significant contribution was to take out Connors for Alex Goode’s try.
In Newcastle, Vunipola accumulated 63 metres from 16 carries, beat four defenders, made two clean breaks, two offloads, an intercept and scored the decisive try.
No, what grated this time was that opportunity knocked with Owen Farrell suspended and Leinster showed what they could do in the second half, when coming hard on to the ball, recycling it with their customary intensity and also getting to the edges.
Clearly spooked from the moment Devin Toner missed the kick-off and from almost every put-in as their scrum was shunted backwards and the scoreboard mounted, their passing and protection of the ball gave Saracens further control of the game.
In truth, Saracens didn’t do all that much. They conjured one try from their only attack of note, otherwise relying on their swarming defence, kick-chase and scrum. But because of Leinster’s fault lines, they didn’t have to do much more.
Good judges say the foot positioning of the Leinster frontrow gives them less balance now and the early pictures presented to Pascal Gaüzère coloured some of his decisions thereafter, ie the penalties against Cian Healy and Ed Byrne for whipping the scrum even though Richard Barrington was clearly scrummaging at an angle for the second. Nor did Leinster’s defensive lineout function at all.
Given the chance to do it all again, one would venture Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster would make three or four different selections. Scott Fardy would have suited that war at some point at least and their omission of Rónan Kelleher, in contrast to previously retaining faith in Jordan Larmour, was very un-Leinsterlike.
Leinster had earned themselves a gilt-edged chance for a fifth star, but they have the resources to come again. Eight of Saturday’s match-day squad, including three Champions Cup debutants, are 24 or under and the average age of the finishing XV was 25.
Furthermore, without the distraction and physical toll of a couple of big European games, the Ireland frontliners should be refreshed, motivated and better prepared for the six-Test, end-of-year itinerary.
It may feel like it right now, but it’s not all doom and gloom.
Christ, he’s whining like malarkey.
I wonder has it even occurred to him that covid has negated the considerable advantages the provinces have over
- The French, because there’s nowt else for the French to do, so they are interested, and it’s nice weather, and
- The ingerlish, who are as rested as the provinces for once.
He also has no issue with the French clubs being in the competition by dint of an absent salary cap, nor with the advantage of having a guaranteed massive regular income for Leinster from the IRFU.
I’d love to see Saracens win it out, just to read thornley and his ilks petulant whining.
It like the oul Aussie joke about knowing when the plane lands in Sydney from Heathrow, cos they turn the engine off and the whining doesn’t stop.
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Fuck no, saracens are an absolute cunt of a club. Would love to see racing win it. 2 fingers to the irfu and Joe Schmidt
I enjoy the snivelling from the blue corner too much. Nearly as much as from the red.
Sale Sharks v Worcester today is OFF after Sale recorded EIGHT more positive cases of Covid-19. Sale will forfeit game.
Bledisloe Cup from earlier this morning on Sky 408. The Aussies look like they’ve found a few players, Daugunu on the wing especially.
Jordi Barrett goes over as I type
Some ending to that. Reese Hodge with a penalty to win it hits the post from 55 metres. Australia regain possession, go for the try rather than a drop goal, NZ get away with a blatant side entry under the posts then before winning back possession legally, go up the field into the Aussie 22 and turn it over on the 5 metre line, win it back again, get held up on line before Australia get it back off a loose pass and kick it out.
This happens most years and then New Zealand turn them over by 40 points in the return fixture
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NZ need a ROG type player to slot the drop goal with the game on the line. A few times in recent years they’ve been too committed to going for the try
“But All Blacks don’t cry – we just get on with it, and adjust to how the game is being refereed.”
Plumtree is a ridiculous name.
They out Munster Munster.
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Munsteritis.
Cracking first half, Exeter v Racing in the Heineken Cup Final.
Australia keep it to twenty points in this week’s edition
Was a good match, caught second half as up early. Savea turning into a monster at 8.
Third one will be a belter.
A pity Koroibete couldn’t get the ball down for a second try. Is the third game in Oz?