Jonathan Bradley

note of pessimism you mentioned coming into a World Cup here coming into a World Cup here means that the provinces are going to see a lot less of these guys these guys are going to be managed more next year so that would be a concern as well but for me the main thing is just that you know you talk about the new manager bounce in football it felt like Munster had that at the start of the season and a lot of their league position was based on that strong start that they made and that's as we say you're now talking eight months ago and

Credit them for still showing that resilience, showing that resolve and making sure that they did nail their Champions Cup place for next season because that wasn't always a given.

But yeah, whenever you're going back to October for the last time, it really felt like there was an awful lot of positivity around the province.

That's a long time at this stage.

it almost feels like that's all been lost because of everything that's happened after it, because it looked like credit to Elan, so they were able to sort of flush that performance, and they got a very smooth attacking performance.

I thought Prendergast was good.

I thought a lot of the passing in general from the back line was very, very crisp, was very, very sharp.

I thought it was...

fairly hilarious how much everybody was clearly willing James Lowe to score whenever we're talking about a knockout game and it felt like everything was geared towards trying to engineer these opportunities for James Lowe to break Shane Horgan's record he actually had a fair amount of work to do with the try that he eventually did get but Jimmy O'Brien went over for one when he could have flipped it inside to Lowe and Lowe did seem to be saying mate why didn't you throw me that ball I was standing there right here and Jimmy O'Brien actually did seem to be like sorry man sorry which is pretty funny like but yeah

Yeah, I think there was an awful lot of positivity of what would be the end of a very difficult week for Leinster.

But I think it's fascinating how that dissipated almost instantly whenever you have all the post-match stuff that's gone on.

I think it's crazy.

Where it becomes interesting, I think, is you talk about his importance to Andy Farrell and you talk about his importance to Ireland in a World Cup year.

And that's where we have this sticking point.

James Lowe will probably come to be viewed as Ireland's last project player because of the change in the eligibility regulations after him.

The knock-on of that legacy is the fact that he didn't get on a central contract because of the age that he was whenever he was able to make his Ireland debut and the age at which he became a central player for Ireland.

But I still didn't think that we would end up with that, even if we say that that is the reason why he was never on a central contract, because the age profile in particular didn't fit to put a player on the central contract.

Bundy Aki would have debuted earlier, wouldn't he?

So he was a central player for Ireland at a younger age.

Yeah.