O’Connor suggested the visitors made too many errors, which Munster consequently took full advantage of.
“We gave them opportunities at the other end of the field and that’s where Munster are very good,” he told TG4. “They took their chances and once they were in front on the scoreboard, it made it very hard.”
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O’Connor also highlighted Leinster’s lack of “accuracy” as one of the primary reasons for their failure tonight.
“They kicked the ball, they chased very hard, they won those 50-50s and from there, they got momentum. From that position, they were very difficult to stop. We defended for a lot of the game and Munster were very good at looking after the ball.”
O’Connor also felt Darragh Fanning’s yellow card on 54 minutes — an important moment in the game — was the incorrect decision.
“I thought the ball was out, to be honest. But that’s the referee’s prerogative obviously. It’s one of those calls that potentially doesn’t go your way away from home and when you’re on the backfoot, but we were second best up until then.”
I went to the game courtesy of two tickets as a Christmas gift, and enjoyed the spectacle. What I didn’t expect was a n awful performance form Leinster. It’s clear now as long as they continue their run, people won’t have any reason to fear them. They’re not who they once were, and the sooner O’Connor goes the better. Because I have at times defended him because it was up to him to take over from Schmidt. But he’s not the man for the job.
For us, great performance, but not getting the bonus point is a bit of a bummer really.
Leinsters backs were just rusty boss and darcy are both at the end of there careers madigan hasnt played 10 all year . Kearney and fitz are just back from a long injury spell. And as for Fanning and Kirchner they have no excuse . Blame the coach all ye want but even if joe was still there he wouldnt have near the fire power he had 3 years ago . The players have to put there hands up aswel and take some blame they havent executed a game plan all year they have had sloppy performances.
When the ball gets out to the backline the 10 decides what to do with it and its a differnet story when you hav sexton darcy o driscoll isa rob kearney and a fully fit luke fitz in your backline you can do more magical things.
That’s BS, the coach has a lot to do with what happens on the pitch. Leinster needed to go through the phases to break Munster’s defense down and they were unable to do this due to their structures or lack there of.
There were several times were Leinster were trying to put sustained pressure on Munster and after 2 or 3 phases of attack their structures broke down and they started getting tackled backwards. If you have a chance to look at the game again you’ll see after a couple of phases the whole attacking line were all standing in a flat line across the pitch and receiving the ball statically which in turn meant by the time they received a pass the Munster defense had closed them down and they were getting tackled behind the gainline.
Also, I don’t think I seen a single player running a dummy line to try create space for a teammate.
This my friend is a problem caused by poor coaching.
Running dummy lines etc needs to be coached? Where’s the leadership on the field? There are experienced heads out there nearing their 30s and you’re saying the players still need to be instructed the most basic plays of rugby? Look, from an outsider looking in, the coach is not working well with this Leinster team, but these players look bloody mediocre. There’s not a single individual on the pitch showing a bit of class. Why do you think Schmidt has Ireland playing conservative 10 man rugby? That’s even more worrying because that’s a combination of backs from all 4 provinces! He’s a good coach though, he understands the limitations and makes the most of what those players can offer. That’s something MOC is not realising and whatever he’s trying isn’t working well with Leinster.
Quite an amazing analysis and summary given the criticisms of Gopphert running a too – deep line, don’t you think?
Why not try this for reality? Joe Schmidt came to Leinster and concentrated his turn – around philosophy on two main pedestals. Superb, accurate passing and a playbook that every forward and back had to buy into and practice/produce.
Absolute keys to this were Sexton, O’Driscoll and key forwards. It was what added to Cheika’s HC success.
Its caused by the 10 not organising the back line correctly every backline has a play book . I understand that moc likes the crash ball game plan but the 10 calls the shots of what the backline does once its of the training pitch . What im saying is leinster havent got the quality of backs they had pre moc . They have a 33 year old centre who usta play with the best 13 in the world now plays with a converted winger . Darragh fanning and dave kearney im sorry but as they do noting wrong they arent at the level isa and luke fitz were a few years ago and johnny sexton is the best 10 in the world unlike ian madigan and jimmy gopperth . Leinster have no world class back at the moment rob kearney is at times. While 3 years ago ye had 5-6 arguably world class backs .
Jason, this must need to be coached because Leinster are no longer doing it or else simply it’s not part of the gameplan. When Schmidt was at Leinster players were as animated as they could be running dummy lines to draw defenders and it happened quite regularly.
Brian. The 10 should be playing flat to the gainline but as i was pointing out the entire backline are standing in a straight line across the pitch which means no dummy lines and no one running on to the ball from deep. This happened every single time after they went through a couple of phases.
That’s true Martin, but who were the players orchestrating those plays back then? You had guys like Healy, O’Brien, Heaslip, Elsom, Thorne etc up front over the years providing dynamism on and off the ball, with the likes of Sexton, Fitz, Nacewa, BOD etc pulling the strings out wide. There was a lot of leadership and a different calibre of skill available back then. There is not a single uninjured Leinster player that I would consider world class right now. There’s been so much talk about who’s fault it is and while I agree MOC has not secured his grip on this team, you would have to be incredibly naive to think that the calibre of players available right now has nothing to do with the poor on field performances.
Schmidt has shown in the last 12 months that he can vary Ireland’s game plan depending on the opposition in front of him.
One of the reasons that we won the 6 nations was because of some excellent tries from back line moves.
A lot of which was orchestrated on the training ground.
To say that Ireland play 10 man conservative rugby is simply not true.
We have a clever coach who knows when to play a tactical kicking game but given enough prep time with the squad can also play a more expansive running attacking game.
You gotta do what ever gives you the best chance to win.
If you consider guys like:
Conor Murray
Jonny Sexton
Robbie Henshaw
Jared Payne
Tommy Bowe
Simon Zebo
Rob Kearney
There is no shortage of attacking quality there!
To say that Schmidt chooses a 10 man game because he doesn’t have back line quality available just isn’t accurate.
It’s a horses for courses approach based on the relevant strengths and weaknesses of our opponents.
Something which Matt O Connor can only fanaticise about!
Think he needs time. Look at the back to back Heineken Cup side and there’s been huge changes since-O’Driscoll, Sexton, Nacewa, etc. plus injuries to players like Murphy and Reddan have been unfortunate. Those calling for the guy’s head would wanna realise that the IRFU and O’Connor probably always saw this as a transitional period from the beginning of his appointment. This isn’t English soccer ffs, he’ll see out his contract.
It’s nothing to do with contracts or your notion of a transitional period. It’s about a poor coach forcing a good team to play badly and not to their strengths.
MOC has had his chance and it’s been very obvious for at least 12 months now that he is not the right man to lead Leinster.
Time? He’s had a year and a half and still has no semblance of a game plan. He’s got too many top class internationals on his team to be delivering this absolute dross week after week. The man has had enough time and his apologists need to start being quiet. He has failed Leinster, and what’s worse, he’s starting to set our national team back by the way he is mismanaging our talent. In a World Cup year, no province should stand for it. MOC out.
Hes had a year and a half and in his first year leinster won a pro 12 title . Ye are the only irish team still in the European cup and are in a very good position to qualify for the play offs of the pro 12 . Any of the other provinces or teams in the pro 12 would envy the position that ye are in at this time of the season. Leinster fans are tunring into soccer fans like Manchester United did last year when you lose a coach as good as joe or alex fergeson and players as good as bod isa leo and all the injuries leinster have it takes time to re build it wont happen over night have some patience its basically a new team from what it was a few years ago with the exception of a handful of players .
These arguments are painfully repetitive. He won a Pro12 title last year, brilliant. First of all, like Kidney winning a Grand Slam, he enjoyed the benefit of inheriting a team that was coached above his level. Secondly, anyone who watched that season can cite two, maybe three, league games where the team actually played with any semblance of a game plan; their first ever match under MOC away to Scarlets, and their final against Glasgow (if you can remember a third league game, please mention it). Thirdly, the team that contributes over half the players to a Six Nations winning squad should expect to win the Pro12 (or not be far off it), and should expect to not roll over in the Heineken Cup. We hammered Northampton away in the Heineken Cup in our best ever performance under MOC, and what a coincidence, that was the weekend that the internationals had just returned from their amazing effort under Schmidt against New Zealand.
Continued:
This stuff is simple. Yes, the team is different, yes the players aren’t as good (some of that due to retirement/injury, some due to a mad selection policy that has left our youth players out in the cold), but no one is expecting Joe Schmidt Champagne rugby, we just don’t want our team turning up looking like it’s the first time they’ve ever met each week. Despite team changes, we can still boast Jack McGrath, Mike Ross, Sean Cronin, Devin Toner, Jamie Heaslip, Eoin Reddan, Ian Madigan, Gordon D’Arcy, Dave Kearny, Rob Kearney, all players Schmidt seems to be able to do brilliant things with. What can O’Connor do? Nothing but rely on individual brilliance and pray for the best. The jig is up, he’s been figured out. MOC out.
Your not the one paying for a season ticket to watch the drivel churned out week in week out. We are.
You say
We are still in Europe- maybe a best runner up, that still has to be decided. We also had a very poor group.
We are in a position to make the top 4 in a six team league. Not great really.
We won the league last year purely in spite of a coach rather than because of him.
We have a squad of internationals
Yesterday we had
We had 15 internationals on the pitch!
I’ll say that again 15 international rugby players and we produced a aib league mid table team performance.
The man and his whole coaching team are frauds.
Blue magic everything your saying is true.
Some of the red tumbs are from our cousins down south gloating after years of been the 3rd best team in the country they finally crawled back to the top of the heap.
More so because of the self destruction of both Leinster and ulster than anything they done themself.
How many games in a row did they lose before yesterday?
Anyway the best team by a Long shot won yesterday and fair play they know what they are doing.
Our problem is we have replaced a scrum coach with a shop keeper
A forwards coach with a lad who use to play for us ( a bit like letting the best flight attendant fly the plane just because he knows where the cockpit is)
And a head coach with ( I’d like to tell you what I really think of this man but I’d get thrown off this site if I did)
Listen… Foley isn’t the finished article either. Look at the 2nd half performance last week as against today..complete turnaround. Munster can not rely on the kick up the arse the week after a bad performance to perform well the next week. Good win but butchered a bonus point. Where were the rehearsed options when Leinster were there for the taking. All going at it like lunatics. ….. costly.
Why is everyone so surprised? Surely munster would be expected to beat the weakest Irish province at home? Didn’t they hammer them in the aviva as well….
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I went to the game courtesy of two tickets as a Christmas gift, and enjoyed the spectacle. What I didn’t expect was a n awful performance form Leinster. It’s clear now as long as they continue their run, people won’t have any reason to fear them. They’re not who they once were, and the sooner O’Connor goes the better. Because I have at times defended him because it was up to him to take over from Schmidt. But he’s not the man for the job.
For us, great performance, but not getting the bonus point is a bit of a bummer really.
Leinsters backs were just rusty boss and darcy are both at the end of there careers madigan hasnt played 10 all year . Kearney and fitz are just back from a long injury spell. And as for Fanning and Kirchner they have no excuse . Blame the coach all ye want but even if joe was still there he wouldnt have near the fire power he had 3 years ago . The players have to put there hands up aswel and take some blame they havent executed a game plan all year they have had sloppy performances.
When the ball gets out to the backline the 10 decides what to do with it and its a differnet story when you hav sexton darcy o driscoll isa rob kearney and a fully fit luke fitz in your backline you can do more magical things.
That’s BS, the coach has a lot to do with what happens on the pitch. Leinster needed to go through the phases to break Munster’s defense down and they were unable to do this due to their structures or lack there of.
There were several times were Leinster were trying to put sustained pressure on Munster and after 2 or 3 phases of attack their structures broke down and they started getting tackled backwards. If you have a chance to look at the game again you’ll see after a couple of phases the whole attacking line were all standing in a flat line across the pitch and receiving the ball statically which in turn meant by the time they received a pass the Munster defense had closed them down and they were getting tackled behind the gainline.
Also, I don’t think I seen a single player running a dummy line to try create space for a teammate.
This my friend is a problem caused by poor coaching.
Running dummy lines etc needs to be coached? Where’s the leadership on the field? There are experienced heads out there nearing their 30s and you’re saying the players still need to be instructed the most basic plays of rugby? Look, from an outsider looking in, the coach is not working well with this Leinster team, but these players look bloody mediocre. There’s not a single individual on the pitch showing a bit of class. Why do you think Schmidt has Ireland playing conservative 10 man rugby? That’s even more worrying because that’s a combination of backs from all 4 provinces! He’s a good coach though, he understands the limitations and makes the most of what those players can offer. That’s something MOC is not realising and whatever he’s trying isn’t working well with Leinster.
Quite an amazing analysis and summary given the criticisms of Gopphert running a too – deep line, don’t you think?
Why not try this for reality? Joe Schmidt came to Leinster and concentrated his turn – around philosophy on two main pedestals. Superb, accurate passing and a playbook that every forward and back had to buy into and practice/produce.
Absolute keys to this were Sexton, O’Driscoll and key forwards. It was what added to Cheika’s HC success.
Its caused by the 10 not organising the back line correctly every backline has a play book . I understand that moc likes the crash ball game plan but the 10 calls the shots of what the backline does once its of the training pitch . What im saying is leinster havent got the quality of backs they had pre moc . They have a 33 year old centre who usta play with the best 13 in the world now plays with a converted winger . Darragh fanning and dave kearney im sorry but as they do noting wrong they arent at the level isa and luke fitz were a few years ago and johnny sexton is the best 10 in the world unlike ian madigan and jimmy gopperth . Leinster have no world class back at the moment rob kearney is at times. While 3 years ago ye had 5-6 arguably world class backs .
Jason, this must need to be coached because Leinster are no longer doing it or else simply it’s not part of the gameplan. When Schmidt was at Leinster players were as animated as they could be running dummy lines to draw defenders and it happened quite regularly.
Brian. The 10 should be playing flat to the gainline but as i was pointing out the entire backline are standing in a straight line across the pitch which means no dummy lines and no one running on to the ball from deep. This happened every single time after they went through a couple of phases.
That’s true Martin, but who were the players orchestrating those plays back then? You had guys like Healy, O’Brien, Heaslip, Elsom, Thorne etc up front over the years providing dynamism on and off the ball, with the likes of Sexton, Fitz, Nacewa, BOD etc pulling the strings out wide. There was a lot of leadership and a different calibre of skill available back then. There is not a single uninjured Leinster player that I would consider world class right now. There’s been so much talk about who’s fault it is and while I agree MOC has not secured his grip on this team, you would have to be incredibly naive to think that the calibre of players available right now has nothing to do with the poor on field performances.
i dont understand all the red thumbs..
Here here
Harvey how many world class backs do Munster have?
Yet they still beat the pants of us?
@ Harvey stop living in the past & making excuses for a lame coach.
Schmidt has shown in the last 12 months that he can vary Ireland’s game plan depending on the opposition in front of him.
One of the reasons that we won the 6 nations was because of some excellent tries from back line moves.
A lot of which was orchestrated on the training ground.
To say that Ireland play 10 man conservative rugby is simply not true.
We have a clever coach who knows when to play a tactical kicking game but given enough prep time with the squad can also play a more expansive running attacking game.
You gotta do what ever gives you the best chance to win.
If you consider guys like:
Conor Murray
Jonny Sexton
Robbie Henshaw
Jared Payne
Tommy Bowe
Simon Zebo
Rob Kearney
There is no shortage of attacking quality there!
To say that Schmidt chooses a 10 man game because he doesn’t have back line quality available just isn’t accurate.
It’s a horses for courses approach based on the relevant strengths and weaknesses of our opponents.
Something which Matt O Connor can only fanaticise about!
P45 for Mattsheen i think……terrible stuff
Delighted. .. O Connor. .. what a manager/Coach. Destroying Leinster. A joke he is.
Think he needs time. Look at the back to back Heineken Cup side and there’s been huge changes since-O’Driscoll, Sexton, Nacewa, etc. plus injuries to players like Murphy and Reddan have been unfortunate. Those calling for the guy’s head would wanna realise that the IRFU and O’Connor probably always saw this as a transitional period from the beginning of his appointment. This isn’t English soccer ffs, he’ll see out his contract.
It’s nothing to do with contracts or your notion of a transitional period. It’s about a poor coach forcing a good team to play badly and not to their strengths.
MOC has had his chance and it’s been very obvious for at least 12 months now that he is not the right man to lead Leinster.
Time? He’s had a year and a half and still has no semblance of a game plan. He’s got too many top class internationals on his team to be delivering this absolute dross week after week. The man has had enough time and his apologists need to start being quiet. He has failed Leinster, and what’s worse, he’s starting to set our national team back by the way he is mismanaging our talent. In a World Cup year, no province should stand for it. MOC out.
Hes had a year and a half and in his first year leinster won a pro 12 title . Ye are the only irish team still in the European cup and are in a very good position to qualify for the play offs of the pro 12 . Any of the other provinces or teams in the pro 12 would envy the position that ye are in at this time of the season. Leinster fans are tunring into soccer fans like Manchester United did last year when you lose a coach as good as joe or alex fergeson and players as good as bod isa leo and all the injuries leinster have it takes time to re build it wont happen over night have some patience its basically a new team from what it was a few years ago with the exception of a handful of players .
These arguments are painfully repetitive. He won a Pro12 title last year, brilliant. First of all, like Kidney winning a Grand Slam, he enjoyed the benefit of inheriting a team that was coached above his level. Secondly, anyone who watched that season can cite two, maybe three, league games where the team actually played with any semblance of a game plan; their first ever match under MOC away to Scarlets, and their final against Glasgow (if you can remember a third league game, please mention it). Thirdly, the team that contributes over half the players to a Six Nations winning squad should expect to win the Pro12 (or not be far off it), and should expect to not roll over in the Heineken Cup. We hammered Northampton away in the Heineken Cup in our best ever performance under MOC, and what a coincidence, that was the weekend that the internationals had just returned from their amazing effort under Schmidt against New Zealand.
Continued:
This stuff is simple. Yes, the team is different, yes the players aren’t as good (some of that due to retirement/injury, some due to a mad selection policy that has left our youth players out in the cold), but no one is expecting Joe Schmidt Champagne rugby, we just don’t want our team turning up looking like it’s the first time they’ve ever met each week. Despite team changes, we can still boast Jack McGrath, Mike Ross, Sean Cronin, Devin Toner, Jamie Heaslip, Eoin Reddan, Ian Madigan, Gordon D’Arcy, Dave Kearny, Rob Kearney, all players Schmidt seems to be able to do brilliant things with. What can O’Connor do? Nothing but rely on individual brilliance and pray for the best. The jig is up, he’s been figured out. MOC out.
Fair play to ya red thumbers, the brain power to click a button, but too dumb to actually respond.
Irishowl hates one team more than supports his own.
Sad you’d rather see one team lose than your own win.
Your not the one paying for a season ticket to watch the drivel churned out week in week out. We are.
You say
We are still in Europe- maybe a best runner up, that still has to be decided. We also had a very poor group.
We are in a position to make the top 4 in a six team league. Not great really.
We won the league last year purely in spite of a coach rather than because of him.
We have a squad of internationals
Yesterday we had
We had 15 internationals on the pitch!
I’ll say that again 15 international rugby players and we produced a aib league mid table team performance.
The man and his whole coaching team are frauds.
Blue magic everything your saying is true.
Some of the red tumbs are from our cousins down south gloating after years of been the 3rd best team in the country they finally crawled back to the top of the heap.
More so because of the self destruction of both Leinster and ulster than anything they done themself.
How many games in a row did they lose before yesterday?
Anyway the best team by a Long shot won yesterday and fair play they know what they are doing.
Our problem is we have replaced a scrum coach with a shop keeper
A forwards coach with a lad who use to play for us ( a bit like letting the best flight attendant fly the plane just because he knows where the cockpit is)
And a head coach with ( I’d like to tell you what I really think of this man but I’d get thrown off this site if I did)
Listen… Foley isn’t the finished article either. Look at the 2nd half performance last week as against today..complete turnaround. Munster can not rely on the kick up the arse the week after a bad performance to perform well the next week. Good win but butchered a bonus point. Where were the rehearsed options when Leinster were there for the taking. All going at it like lunatics. ….. costly.
Why is everyone so surprised? Surely munster would be expected to beat the weakest Irish province at home? Didn’t they hammer them in the aviva as well….
That’s the finest attempt at trolling I’ve seen in a while.
Good lad, keep up the good work!
Thanks very much!
It’s all well and good constantly admitting that we were shite, but when is o’connor actually gonna do something about it???
A total bluffer. Made Joe Smith look like Dec Kidney.
Joe Schmidt. You’re clearly an expert on bluffing about the game yourself.