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Chapter 1: What is the URC Grand Final preview about?
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I think it's going to be the greatest atmosphere at any boxing event I've ever witnessed, you know, certainly in my lifetime. And I'm so pleased for her as well.
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Off the Balls Rugby Daily with Bank of Ireland, a proud sponsor of Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster Rugby. Never stop competing. You're very welcome along to Friday's Rugby Daily. I'm Cameron Hill. We've made it to another weekend, folks, and it's a URC Grand Finals special for you today. We'll hear from both the Leinster and Bulls camps ahead of tonight's game.
Some off-the-ball regulars will offer their thoughts on how the game is going to go. And there's a couple of highlights from chats we had this week with bona fide Leinster royalty. First up today, it's game day for Leinster, who are hoping to retain the URC title tonight. In a repeat of last year's decider, Leo Cullen's side go up against three-time runners-up, the Bulls, at Croke Park.
There are three changes from their semi-final win over the Stormers at the Aviva Stadium a fortnight ago, with Gerry Kerr, Tadhg Furlong and Tommy O'Brien all returning. James Lowe starts on the wing in his final game for Leinster. He's leaving Ireland this summer, reportedly for a move to Japan. It's also a last run out in blue for scrum half Luke McGrath.
He's on the bench and heading to Perpignan this summer. Cullen says those factors make tonight's game especially emotional.
The guys are excited to get out there. you know, one final push, isn't it? Some of them will never play for Leinster, potentially ever again. It's important that we relish the time together. So we didn't have very many sessions. There was a number of sessions and you realise, OK, the players, first of all, realise that's all the sessions that we have left.
And it's, OK, let's commit to these sessions going into a final. And then we're... off we go now into the game. So, he's trying to get the balance right. But we also addressed this in the final part as well, because if you think when we played the final after Bilbao, we sort of had a plan, there was a bit of a sort of decompress off the back of that, whether we won that game or lost that game.
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Chapter 2: What insights do the Leinster camp share ahead of the final?
I think there's plenty of power on that Leinster side and that is a big challenge for Gerry tonight. He's coming up against Francois Klopper and Vilko Loos on the bench. They just have so much power and I think they've played with a composure and they proved with their performance against Glasgow in the semi-final that they're a pretty resilient team and they can control possession.
They didn't panic at half-time. I think it was 21-3 down at half-time against Glasgow. the performance and the reaction was exceptional. So, you know, for Leinster, they've got to be mindful of that. And I'm sure it's very obvious they'll be trying to get, particularly Robin McBride, they'll be trying to get his forward pack to make sure that they're ready for that.
But they've got to concentrate on their own performance as well and maybe look at some of the stuff in the final last year. And this is going to be a real dogfight. It's going to be a real, real challenge for Leinster.
Dara Smith-Nocton caught up with Bulls and South Africa winger Kanan Moody in studio earlier this week. He revealed that playing in Croke Park is particularly special for him.
Yeah, it's obviously an incredible stadium. You know, obviously hearing from the Irish people that it's very historic and not a lot of rugby games that are played there. And, you know, obviously being fortunate enough to be one of the few rugby players who have played a game on Croke Park is very special. And yeah, I think, like you said, not a very historic stadium.
So obviously as a rugby player, it's always nice to play at these stadiums and, you know, just experience it. Have you ever seen a game of get a football or hurling? Have you ever got to view it on TV or anything? No, never. I've never seen it before. I'll show you a bit after this. I'll give you a clip or two.
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This is Rugby Daily on Off the Ball with Bank of Ireland, a proud sponsor of Irish rugby, never stop competing. So we've already mentioned the scrum, but the line-out could also be a major battleground in tonight's game at Croker. According to URC statisticians, Leinster have the slight edge in the line-out this season, winning 11 more than the Bulls across the 20 games so far.
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Chapter 3: What are the emotional factors impacting the players in the final?
playing against Exeter, the Aviva, and we were behind for the entirety of the game. We get ahead, the last line of the game to close it out. And the call was that he was going to be coming, he would come into the line-out and it would be him coming forward and going up.
And that's finally what gets told to me and I'm looking at him coming in and he's his head down as if he's got a back lift, the person at the front comes to the very front. I'm looking at this bin like, at what point is the person in front of me going to turn around to front lift them? And they're both looking at me as if they're about to go up.
I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to just do this here. Hope for the best. So I just chuck it in. We somehow scrape it back or whatever. And anyway, we close out the game and it's fine. I was like, what on earth? He's like, oh, I changed my mind. He's like, well, do you think the only other person who might need to know that you changed your mind is me? He's like, oh, we won it. It's grand.
It's great. He was like, well, it worked out. He was fine. The other was against Toulouse in the game we lost away. I was told the call was dropped. Between the loser telling me the call and him walking back, he forgot himself. And he mixed them up. And he was meant to run all the way around and lift Dev at the tail, and he cut in halfway.
And anyway, ball goes over the top, and it was one of many mistakes that day. And honestly, you didn't mention his name. No, no. As far as what worked out okay, so I don't mind that one. Listen, there's plenty of mistakes it gave us, but they were the only two where there was a breakdown.
I think things evolve and they continue to evolve but I'd hope that the school system in Leinster doesn't just replicate what the Leinster system does.
I believe there needs to be some change or some injection of new ideas to keep evolving. Because, yeah, if all things across all areas look the same, it can be a good thing, but only to a point. I think there needs to be a new injection of ideas, either at the top or down into schools to make a difference.
Well, I was going to say, talking to... various people about different organisations, you can have that top-down thing. And it seemed to work a little bit when Lancaster came in, he went down and said, OK, this is how we're doing things. Take all the ideas that you want. But maybe now it needs to come from somewhere else.
Like in high school, American football is frequently where the colleges rip off ideas and then the NFL rips ideas off from college. You would assume best coaches are all constantly working in the NFL, but actually, frequently it comes the other way.
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