Leinster's shattered invincibility was bruising wake-up call after PRO14 cakewalk
It’s a good job that Dublin was in lockdown this weekend with its pubs shut due to the Irish capital city’s latest pandemic restrictions. Otherwise, Alex Goode might have been tempted to make a mighty fine time of it after Saracens’ latest Champions Cup victory over Leinster.
Sixteen months ago there was no stopping his liquid festivities after the Champions Cup final win in Newcastle. Bum bag, boots, full match kit and lashings of Guinness. He famously partied for days.
Now, fresh from scoring 19 of his team’s 25 points in an assured display that made light the absence of the suspended Owen Farrell, Goode would have been more than deserving of a celebratory tipple and another few lively nights on the tiles.
That bender will have to wait, though. Aside from the Dublin vintners forcibly having had to shut up shop under governmental health diktat, there was the small matter of Goode now having a semi-final to prepare for in Paris next weekend.
Racing vs Saracens under the La Defense Arena roof is the Champions Cup fixture no one anticipated materialising. Leinster and Clermont were instead expected to rendezvous at the Aviva Stadium, but that duo now have a free week to chastised themselves as to why they didn’t progress and set-up a repeat of their 2017 last-four encounter.
"The whole rugby infrastructure built over the last 150 years is under threat"
– Dire warning coming out of Dublin about the health of Irish rugby's bottom line https://t.co/1vQpEgbrdZ
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 18, 2020
It’s said that a week is a long time in politics – and the bungling Irish coalition understands this very well as they have stumbled from one virus PR disaster to another in recent days. But that time measurement is just as applicable to Irish rugby.
Last weekend Leinster invincibly stood tall as the greatest team the PRO14 had ever seem, their comfortable win over Ulster wrapping up an unprecedented third title on the bounce. But now this Champions Cup post-mortem will be brutal on so many levels for Leinster and, by extension, Irish rugby.
Down on their uppers, they would have hoped some European prize money would help alleviate the penury attested to on Friday when claiming these behind close doors matches for their provinces (a situation that is also coming down the line for their Test team) were sucking them dry of the revenue needed to pay monthly bills of up to €5million
It all sounded a bit dramatic, the IRFU even suggesting that rugby as a professional sport in Ireland could be a dead duck by 2021 if crowds weren’t allowed to soon return in significant numbers. Now they also have navel-gazing to do about the calibre of the product on the pitch as Saturday illustrated how the maligned PRO14 isn’t intense enough to fully tool its teams up for European combat.
Leinster had done well in recent times, their presence in the last two Champions Cup finals interrupting the Anglo-French dominance that had seen three France clubs (Toulon 3, Clermont 3, Racing 2) and one English (Saracens 4) dominate the list of teams who reached the past seven showpiece deciders.
The hope was that winning a league title in recent weeks would have gotten Leinster up to the necessary European mark but their first-half passiveness against Saracens shone a blinding light on how the cobbled together five-nation PRO14 doesn’t sufficiently deliver on a week to week basis.
With this in mind, how apt was it that just over an hour before kick-off that it emerged the Southern Kings, the pub team-like South African franchise that had won just four of its 55 games, had gone bust. That’s hardly a positive reflection on the credibility of the PRO14 and how it compares to its Premiership and Top 14 rivals.
Playing activities were suspended in August, now they have gone bust! https://t.co/9hMkcf1p7f
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 19, 2020
Television pictures didn’t do justice to the impenetrable moving wall Saracens confronted Leinster with. Watching from the media box, their line speed movement was like a squeezebox playing sweet English music, their players connected and stepping forward and back in unison that was a defensive masterclass in how to win collisions, indomitable players like Maro Itoje timing interventions to perfection.
Their starting forwards contributed a whopping 126 tackles, Itoje topping that chart on 19, while their midfield partnership added another 32 for good measure, repeatedly snuffing out Leinster coming down the channels.
Then there was the scrum, Saracens winning seven penalties from their dozen put-ins. Rather than just simply lay the blame squarely at the hips of combustible props, though, Leinster must wind the tape back further and sift through the reasons why they gave the opposition that amount of set-piece in the first place.
They won’t like what they find. Leinster, who conceded an unusually high total of 15 penalties, were spooked from the off, Jack Conan sloppily spilling the first catch, and the errors continued from there. Jordan Larmour was unreliable under box kicks, knocking on two, and he was then guilty of forcing a second-half pass instead of going to ground and calmly recycling the ball.
Their sacked maul gave up three possessions in the red zone while the sight of Johnny Sexton horribly scuffing a restart kick that didn’t go the requisite ten metres was quite horrific, resulting in another penalty scoring scrum just seconds after Elliot Daly had just knocked one over from another wilting set-piece.
You can say what you like about Saracens' achievements in the Premiership, but their European legacy will live on, undiminished.
– writes @alexshawsport ???https://t.co/hHZHLWeJEr
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 20, 2020
It was the scrum that contributed to Leinster being 16 points behind to Northampton at the break in the 2011 final, an issue which their then scrum coach Greg Feek fixed on the fly during the interval. Mike Ross was tighthead that day and he tweeted around the half-hour mark in Saturday match, “Leinster back rows need to stay stuck to the scrum, creating a 6 vs 8 situation.”
The fact that Caelan Doris was penalised on 78 minutes for breaking his bind and allowing Goode to seal the result was indicative of how these necessary on-field adjustments to solidify a wounding area of weakness didn’t happen and it will be an uncomfortable few days for current scrum coach Robin McBryde, who arrived in after last year’s World Cup with Wales.
Not since last November’s South Africa vs England decider had the scrum been so influential to a result, but here was a bruising Aviva Stadium reminder that the eight-man shove remains of such vital importance.
That’s twice in a row now that Leinster have been smothered by Saracens in different ways in the Champions Cup. In May 2019 they failed to cling on to a ten-point lead in Newcastle. Here they didn’t have the necessary composure to finish the job after cutting the 19-point interval margin to five with 17 minutes left.
“We need to be better, we need to figure out how to we can be better,” rued Leo Cullen in the aftermath. “It’s frustrating.” Sure was. From league champions to European also-rans… a week is definitely a long time in Irish rugby.
Barnstorming game at the Aviva! https://t.co/WGeWO27biy
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 19, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
After their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
2 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
29 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
3 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to comments