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Chapter 1: What led to Leinster's back-to-back URC titles?
Hello and welcome to the Counter-Rugby podcast brought to you by the Irish Times in partnership with Oak Energy. Gordon Darcy is standing by as Leinster have won a second consecutive URC crown. They bounce back from the Champions Cup disappointment to comprehensively beat the Bulls in Croke Park. So without further ado, here's myself and Darcy.
Right, so Leinster have just won their second consecutive URC, as we tend to do for some of the bigger matches. We're talking pretty much immediately after full-time. What, about 15 minutes or so since Leinster bougied the ball off into the stands at Croke Park. Pretty dominant victory. Tries for Tommy O'Brien, Riku Ioane, Jack Conan, Sam Prenn against Harry Byrne. It was 22-0 at halftime.
Maybe not quite game done with memories of how the Bulls overturned things against Glasgow in their semi-final, but they struggled to fire a shot. Just one try in the second half of the Bulls, Ken and Moudier, and equally they had another one chalked off for a pass from Moudier. So that's the most important thing. Gordon Darcy, hello.
The first thing I said to you before we started recording, that was a lot more one-sided than perhaps I was led to believe in the build-up.
Yeah. Do you know what it kind of struck out to me? It was a little bit like the Champions Cup final. Very heavily one-sided. One team never, never showed up, never got off the bus, never got off the plane for the Bulls in the Bulls case. And the team is better equipped, kind of just took more advantage. So Bulls had more disadvantage coming into it.
Those Leinster going into the Champions Cup final were heavily underdogged. So, yeah, it kind of just felt a little bit like that. If things went Leinster's way, they always had that in the back pocket. You wanted the Bulls to get off the flight and to really show up. That passage, maybe 65 to 75 minutes, where you're looking at that going...
If the Bulls were able to deliver that for 50 minutes, what would the game have been like? What I'm feeling is for the Bulls to be able to do that, it needs to be in South Africa.
To what extent, though, do we say that's the Bulls, as you said, not getting off the flight and it's very difficult?
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Chapter 2: How did Leinster dominate the Bulls in the URC final?
And look, I know, I suspect the main reason for the week, the fortnight between semifinal and finals, they could shift tickets, especially when the game is in Croke Park, but it does give the South African sides, or if teams are traveling to South Africa, the benefit of you're not traveling at a week's notice. So, you know, there was that extra mitigation built in. So to what extent...
Because there was a big talking point beforehand was the clash of styles. You know, Leinster wanting to play on the ball, lots of rucks. You were calling for them to avoid empty rucks in midfield in the first half. They probably did a pretty good job of that. To what extent was this Leinster just keeping the ball away from the Bulls, winning those high scraps and making sure that they didn't get
that loose ball that they thrive on and equally set piece dominance. They didn't quite get that. They did in the scrum, but not the extent that it became game changing. To what extent do you credit Leinster for denying them that? Or to what extent do you think just that physicality they need for that game plan wasn't there?
The overarching thing that I have in the back of my head, kind of rooting around, is if anybody's watching the State of Origin, I've been following Andrew John's fundatory and it's just been eye-opening. It brings me really back to the fundamental time I started playing rugby and started thinking about rugby.
One of the overarching comments he's talked about is talking about the jump from club rugby to State of Origin.
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Chapter 3: What were the key moments in the first half of the match?
Stuff that gets you away at club rugby won't get you to, you won't get away with it at the state of origin. You have to be better, you have to be a better coach, you have to be better prepared, you have to be all these things because you're playing against better players. And in this instance, I think a lot of the Bulls players, a lot of key individuals had really, really poor games.
And I think that fed into how they played. And Leinster never really needed, Leinster were never really stressed. I thought Scrum Half, Pepier? Ambrose Pepier, yeah. Pepier, okay, well, I've actually surprised myself. I thought he was incredibly poor at the fundamentals of a Scrum Half job. which was box kicking.
Chapter 4: How did the Bulls' performance compare to their semi-final?
I thought his box kicking was absolutely abysmal. And that is so fundamental to a set piece, heavy, tight five driven game. So I lost count at about six when I was looking at there going, that's a, that's a two out of 10 kick. And, you know, when you look at the players they had competing for it and Leinster are not historically and
I say when I say historically, the last couple of years and this year, they're not very good in the air. And like, you're not even firing a shot in that key driver of transition phase, which they are very, very good at. You look at the transition for when Sam Prendergast had to make that intervention in the UK. in the bottom corner when he beat the two players to the ball.
And, you know, a big pat on the back for Sam Brandegast for dropping it into second and getting there. But that transition play was quite a key part of what the Bulls do and what's that African rugby do really well. But when your number nine can't place a box kick and he was under no pressure, you know, a really poor piece.
Chapter 5: What tactical advantages did Leinster have over the Bulls?
You've got Willy LaRue having a horror show Pollard never really got into the game. So you're kind of looking at it going key players for the Bulls didn't really do much. So I'm always trying to be balanced with that. Leinster weren't stressed.
Until they were 20 points up. And in that period, you say the second half. Yeah.
Yeah. And even if that try that was chopped off was given, you're still going. I think I'll get like that to get five tries.
Yeah, and even just when Leinster took that penalty late in the first half, instead of going to the corner again, that created a four score game. They didn't have to do a lot necessarily, but they managed the game pretty well. What was interesting, what I found interesting in that first half, and we'll get on to Leinster's attack because there's a few positive bits to get into there, I suspect.
But when the Bulls, the few times they did have the ball in that first half, And they played that power game, that kind of what Bordeaux did to Leinster, keep the ball very close to the ruck. There's three or four lads there to blast the ruck. Every ruck is rapid. Your nine is looking to be a threat around the breakdown. And you've got those outside backs.
They'd still have that forward power to an extent. But what intrigued me was Leinster, for me, they definitely took that defensive physicality up a gear from Bordeaux. to the point where they were almost tackling the guys who were coming in to hit the breakdown at the same time as they're tackling the ball carrier, if that made sense.
And Tommy O'Brien came up with a big breakdown steal because I think somebody got tripped up over a Leinster tackler. They went a lot lower in contact and they were a lot more physical. And, you know, there might've been some skullduggery dark arts there. Maybe that's, you know, Sean O'Brien is earning his salt as a coach in that contact skills area there.
But they seem to manage those close exchanges much better tonight than they did against Bordeaux.
I think South African teams aren't afraid to advertise what they're going to do. So you can prepare accordingly. And I think Leinster did prepare accordingly very well. They met them enough in the physical stakes. And then they forced pressure and turnovers on the follow-up phases when they did try to go out the back. So it was a really sharp defensive display. I suppose...
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Chapter 6: How did individual player performances impact the game?
So Ronan Keller got turned over on one phase in this, I think it was one of the first, well, the second attempt in the 22 when they I got turned over on the first one. And he gets the ball, he does a little dummy and then just powers into contact. And I'm just looking at all of the players around him. Very few players are looking at what Ronan Keller is doing. And to me, that is a real issue.
As they're going, you can't be thinking the next phase when the ball, and then they get turned over. So that I just think is a really good insight into how players are playing the game at the moment. The reason why I mentioned NRL is they send a Willie Mason. They send him up on a tap ball and the whole other 12 players know that that's what he's doing. He's going to carry.
They don't have to send anyone to the rook. So they can actually get set up for the next play. And they do that whole pivot passing, front door option, somebody at the back. But the key difference with that is they're moving when they get the ball. So when you're the first receiver, second receiver, third receiver, whatever that might be, everybody is in motion.
And it's a key difference between what the union game has taken from rugby league. We've taken this, oh, we'll do this, the pivot plays, I've started calling them the dead pass, but it's static, which I think is a fundamental difference between what we've take, what rugby league do versus what rugby union is doing.
And I think it's something we have to think about and should be thinking about very, very differently.
I'll continue my conversation with Gordon after the break. Well, that goes back to your point about what these kids are being coached from a young age. And it's funny, you made the point about the schools. You've made it, but your old teammate was on the airwaves. You may have not seen this.
Easton Asilo was on the radio the other day basically saying something similar, that you can't have the schools all being coached in the same way. Or you can't have the schools being coached in the same way as what the pros are playing right now and what Leinster are playing. And you need that variety.
Yeah.
But where has this pod system come from? It's come from Rugby League to create that second wave. Rugby League, they have a set of play which they can all time their runs off and they're all in movement. That's my point. But because the ruck is dynamic in Union, we've ended up with the pod play being static, which has put the pivot play deeper and deeper.
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