How Bordeaux outfoxed Leinster and URC quarter-finals preview
episodePreviously titled “How Bordeaux outfoxed Leinster + URC quarter-finals preview” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 6, 2026
The Counter Ruck: The Irish Times Rugby Podcast
20 min
2 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 3 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What tactics did Bordeaux use to outsmart Leinster?
Hello, welcome to the Counter Rock Rugby Podcast. It's brought to you by the Irish Times in partnership with Oak Energy. Brett Igoe is here with me. First time on the pod. I'm sure plenty of people have seen Brett. He writes for The Currency and has done a few other podcasts around this place. Big following on social media, putting out clips, making graphics. Brett is a former analyst with Leinster and Scotland. For those who have seen some of those graphics that come up, Brett is a numbers guy and People may not know that I'm a big numbers guy as well. So a little bit self-indulgent to get a fellow man who enjoys talking about data analysis on. But Brett, how are things? I mean, you've been very busy since the weekend picking through Leinster's defeat.
Dare I say, there's been a few things that stood out to you.
Personally, thanks for the introduction. It's tough having to watch it twice. Tough to have watched it a third time. It doesn't get any easier the more you watch it, unfortunately. I just find it really interesting just to look at both teams and how they set themselves up and what they wanted to do and what they wanted to achieve. And I just thought that I was really impressed with how UUB were set up in terms of even things like their line-out defence. The use of Cameron Wokey, how they handled the 10-minute red or the yellow cards, how they generally attacked Leinster. I thought it was really, really impressive. It was like as though they looked at opposition who caused Leinster problems and they just cherry-picked the best of them and just put it all together as their game plan.
Look, it was really impressive what they did. And unfortunately for Leinster, the wait goes on, doesn't it?
Interesting, because watching it live in Bilbao, my original thought was, oh God, everyone's going to go to McNamara unpicked the Blitz, you know, McNamara out thinks Nina Burr. That was all the narrative in the buildup, like who would outthink each other. And I don't know, maybe this is just my tendency to try and not just take the easy narrative and copy what everyone else is saying. But my first thought live was for all the prep clearly that was done and impressive coaching that went on. Leinster were just overpowered and you can only go so far when overpowered. I'm assuming you're going to tell me that there's a little bit more to it than that.
you're correct, you know, like the try they scored, they had to go through those 19 phases. Like, in that heat, as the players keep reminding me, it was tough, you know, but that's eating on the energy levels. It actually is causing a bit of self-doubt in the players' minds. Mentally, how are the players fixed? I'm not too sure I've ever seen Hugo Keenan drop a ball that's kicked from the 20 to opposition's 22 under obviously a small bit of match pressure but in terms of like he's a Lions test player not too sure I've ever seen him just drop a cold ball like that so where were they in terms of their mental preparation when it comes to that but yet physically some of those dominant ball carries when you go through the
I think it was the third try by LBB. Like that first ball carried by Mofana was just absolutely huge. And I know we've jokingly had conversations about missed tackles. That is a missed tackle and it shows the types of missed tackles that you don't want to make. But it was like straight over the top of Harry Burnham. That was a massive collision win and then that's it and they're going to lose collisions. And I know Caelan spoke about it in his press conference post-match. They struggled to win any sort of physical battle with Bordeaux.
How did Bordeaux's game plan exploit Leinster's weaknesses?
You said it's something that piqued my interest previously that it looks like Bordeaux kind of picked different elements from different teams of what's worked against Leinster in recent times. What did you see there? A couple of examples.
Yeah, a few examples. Like as Noel mentioned in his conference, by going wide into that wide space when lens are blitzing all the time, I think he referred to as fool's gold.
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Chapters
4 chaptersSpeakers
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