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Bath head coach Neal Hatley admitted the mood was “downbeat” in the home dressing room after their biggest-ever losing margin at the Recreation Ground in any competition.
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Leinster scored 10 tries in all in a 64-7 Heineken Champions Cup win, with one of their lesser-known players taking man-of-the-match honours.
Leinster wing Jimmy O’Brien scored four tries, while Jordan Larmour, Josh van der Flier, Ciaran Frawley, Andrew Porter, Hugo Keenan and Dan Sheehan also scored while Bath’s consolation came from Max Clark.
Hatley said: “The boys are really disappointed. We’ve worked hard but there’s a gulf in class at the moment. Look at the tables and you can see that. They showed what a good side they are when they get opportunities.
“It wasn’t the winning or losing of it but we had chances to close the gap and we didn’t take them.
“Sometimes rock bottom is the best foundation. Other clubs have found themselves where we are now. We’re not happy with it. We’re not proud of where we are. But we’ve got to put things in place at this great club so that we never find ourselves in this position again.”
Hatley pointed to promising young players such as Orlando Bailey, named in Eddie Jones’s England squad this week and finding himself up against Ireland captain Johnny Sexton.
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He said: “Sexton is world-class, has a hundred caps and has been one of the best fly-halves of the last 10 or 12 years. But I think you also saw glimpses from Orlando as a 20-year-old in a team that has been put together around him. I thought he was outstanding.
“He’s a hard-working individual. He’s got to learn from people like Sexton and he will. One of the things about him and why he has been called into the England set-up is how quickly he learns and how well he prepares.”
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen hailed wing O’Brien as moving to “the next level” with a four-try display against Bath.
Cullen said: “Jimmy scored four tries but some of his defensive work too, especially down in the corner here, was phenomenal.
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“This builds on last week (when O’Brien scored in an 89-7 win over Montpellier) in moving up to the next level. So we are really pleased with him.
“The challenge now is to change our approach with a different squad for Cardiff in the (United Rugby Championship) while a number of players go away to Ireland camp.
“We have more games during the Six Nations now, which is going to be a great opportunity for a number of guys who are sitting at home at the minute, feeling a bit frustrated after some tight selections.”
The Pool A standings are disrupted by Covid but Cullen said: “We’ll see how it all unfolds now. It’s a guessing game.”
Cullen acknowledged the home team had had their moments despite the scoreline.
He said: “I thought they came strong at the start, to be fair to them. They missed a few opportunities. They put us into the corners as we gave away a few penalties. We managed to hold out and hit them for two quick scores, then a third.
“We were a little bit loose at times and gave them an intercept try but credit to our players, they’ve shown really good attacking intent. To score five tries in each half is a pretty decent effort.”
Comments on RugbyPass
‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
18 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
11 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
11 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
81 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
81 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
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