Ruaidhri O'Connor

Yet they'll draw confidence from that, from the way Ireland finished.

I think they've taken a lot of what Ireland are doing and gone into Leinster and gone, look, this is working for us.

We've got to keep going.

There's a bit of a disconnect between what Dan Sheehan keeps talking about, you know,

We're holding each other to account.

We want to play more like the Leinster way.

We want to play with freedom.

And then I asked Jack Nienaber about that.

He goes, well, I haven't really talked to Dan about that, but he's even said, I want to incorporate the Leinster identity into what I'm doing.

So they're definitely trying something slightly different.

They want the best of what Nienaber has, but also the best of what Leinster has.

can offer and the kind of Leinster way and they're trying to marry that together and as of yet we haven't seen what that looks like and the problem with a season like this when you have a poor pre-season because of all the other constraints and the mixing and matching that Leinster have to do all season with Ireland it's very hard for them to build any cohesion and continuity and we're getting to the point now where they need to find it and it hasn't really happened yet

yeah thanks a million guys cheers Rod cheers Joe appreciate it where are you on Leinster attack and all of this coming together beautifully on Saturday today's the day look Ian's very convincing and he obviously has huge knowledge you have to respect his opinions but I can't get past the number of flaws that I'm seeing in Leinster's game across the last number of weeks and across the season

I can see glimpses and bits and you know periods of time like the first 50 minutes against Ulster with a much changed team they're looking at them going that's Leinster that was a much changed team went up there and produced a Leinster like performance and even the fact that they led Ulster back into the game and then won you know when it got tight they closed it out really well that was impressive the second half against Sale was very very good

But you can't just brush past the first half where they kept dropping the ball or the Edinburgh game.

And I know it was a freak and Edinburgh were just going for intercepts left, right and centre.

But Leinster didn't adapt in any way to what they were doing until the second half they did.

But, you know, when it was still in the balance and they were also putting the ball down routinely.

And I think Ian touched on one of the big issues they have at the moment is that they're playing in front of opponents and they're trying to get the ball down.

they're you know doing the kind of the out the back plays without ever really threatening to carry the ball into contact and engage the internal defence which means the rest of them you know the opposition can just drift and it's too easy for them and they're getting you're seeing players being bundled into touch and running out of space and having to cut back inside when it clicks they're excellent I think Dan Sheehan has put the team on his back to a certain degree in recent weeks and if they win this tournament he'll probably end up as European Player of the Year and deservedly