RP12 Semi Final 2: Leinster v Ulster, 17 May

First topic message reminder :

Leinster Rugby v Ulster Rugby

Saturday 17 May 2014, KO: 19:00
Royal Dublin Society

Live on RTE/BBC NI/S4C

Referee: Leighton Hodges (WRU., 40th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Ian Davies (WRU), Neil Paterson (SRU)
Citing Commissioner: Paul Minto (SRU)
TMO: Gareth Simmonds (WRU)

A. Teams:

I. Leinster


Kearney R, McFadden, O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, Kearney D, Gopperth, Reddan;
Healy, Cronin, Moore, Toner, Roux, Ruddock, Jennings, Heaslip.

Dundon, McGrath, Ross, Cullen, O'Brien, McGrath, Madigan, Kirchner

II. Ulster

C Gilroy, T Bowe, J Payne, D Cave, A Trimble, P Jackson, R Pienaar;

C Black, R Best, R Lutton, J Muller (Captain), I Henderson, R Diack, C Henry, R Wilson.

Replacements: R Herring, A Warwick, A Macklin, D Tuohy, S Doyle, P Marshall, J McKinney, L Marshall.  

B. Previous Championships

I. Leinster

Three (2001-2002; 2007-2008; 2012-2013)

Playoff Record - Played 4, Won 4:
2010 RDS: beat Munster 16-6.
2011 RDS: beat Ulster 18-3.
2012 RDS: beat Warriors 19-15.
2013 RDS: beat Warriors 17-15.

II. Ulster

One (2005-2006)

Playoff Record - Played 2, Won 1, Lost 1:
2011 RDS: lost to Leinster 3-18.
2013 Ravenhill: beat Scarlets 28-17.

C. Form - head to head:

36 Played 36
26 Wins 7
7 Losses 26
3 Draws 3
78 Tries 44
53 Conversions 32
106 Penalties 94
5 Drop Goals 3
829 Points 575
28 Avg. Age 24

D. Form - this season & last:

Fri 21 December 2012, 19:05
Ulster Rugby 27 - 19 Leinster Rugby
Ravenhill

Sat 30 March 2013, 18:15
Leinster Rugby 18 - 22 Ulster Rugby
Royal Dublin Society

Sat 25 May 2013 (Grand Final), 16:45
Ulster Rugby 18 - 24 Leinster Rugby
Royal Dublin Society

Sat 28 December 2013, 18:45
Leinster Rugby 19 - 6 Ulster Rugby
Royal Dublin Society

Fri 2 May 2014, 19:30
Ulster Rugby 20 - 22 Leinster Rugby
Ravenhill

Arghhhhh, tense tense times.

Could be extra time

Gilroy's had a good game fair play.

Leinster not doing well at the breakdown.  Hope Baby Chilli's OK.  Looks like that could be a nasty injury.   

Awh Big Bro is there to help. Heard someone mention knee ligaments.

   

MAAAADDDDDIIIGGGAAANNN!

This could be the game winning try.

And there it is...Leinster are in another final by the looks. Madigan gets over the whitewash.

Love sacks

[quote="glamorganalun"]Could be extra time[/quoteay be not!

m

Jeebz, how frustrating can Ulster get?!

13-9 with seven minutes to go.

Big, hairy, old man baws.

Come on you bluddy Ulstermen.

Try or die now for Ulster....  

Oh Jeebz!! They're inches away from glory...FFS!

That Leinster defence is a beeatch!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Knocked forward. FOOOOOCK!

Should have taken points

Can't complain about the ref. He's had a very good game today too.

Any idea who MOTM is?

Every Glasgow fan right now

glamorganalun wrote:Should have taken points

They needed at least a try. Three points wouldn't help as there's no guarantee that they'd be given another three shortly after.

Ooooof. Bad call by the ref there

Cari wrote:Can't complain about the ref.  He's had a very good game today too.

Any idea who MOTM is?

  has he  

in fairness to MoC he has improved our defense a lot this year,it's just our attack has regressed so much it's inexcusable.If he's doing a 2 year project where next season the attack gets more focus I'll be very happy to be wrong about him but it's very hard to see where the improvement will come from.

GLove39 wrote:Ever Glasgow fan right now

  

Believe Glasgae...beginners luck!

I'm sorry, that is just not good enough from Ulster. Completely sub-standard attacking play. Serious questions need to be asked over the summer.

13-9 FT.

Well done Leinster, you just scraped through that to be fair to Ulster.

Ulster fans   

Unlucky Ulster, scrum cost you dearly in the end.

Leinster defence is rather potent.

Good game a bit lucky but home advanatage pid off in the end should be a close final.

Can't quite believe Ulster didn't win that. So many chances for tries or even drop goals to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
Leinster seemed asleep for the first 50 odd minutes. Still Madigan is a class act. Why hasn't he been starting more?

Bring on Dublin. Time to avenge the last 2 years.

I can feel the RyanAir ticket prices rising as I type.

Completely gutted for Ulster - would much rather have played them in Glasgow rather than see the inside of the RDS yet again.

Wow that was a tough one,our bench won us the game,we were abject for 60 minutes but managed to keep the score down.Have to feel for Ulster they have had no luck the last 2 years where injuries/idiotic refereeing decisions have derailed their season.

To go out against a Leinster team that played that poorly with the ball and to have that much possession in their 22 and only come away with nine points? Lets just admit it, we are bottlers on the scale of Clermont Auvergne and this group of players needs to address that or they will retire knowing they never reached their potential.

Absolutely disgusted and gutted. There was no reason we shouldn't have won that game. Every statistic but the scoreboard in our favour, just no composure in their 22. Taking contact with one out runners against the best technical breakdown side in Europe is madness. So painfully predictable and doomed to failure.

Watched the Welsh feed with RTE Radio commentary, disagree with their statement that it was "a majestic Leinster performance". Far from it. Ulster were the better side over the 80, just not clinical enough. Leinster were ill-disciplined. Madigan's introduction was decisive but it was enforced so I wouldn't give MOC too much credit.

Feel sorry for Ulster fans, they were the better team for 80% of the game..

That was a great line from Madigan for his try though, good try.

Fair play to Leinster with their defensive effort, if we scrambled as well as they did Madigan wouldn't have scored.

Actually quite angry we haven't learned the lessons of the last three years and made all the same mistakes that cost us those games. It was like history repeating itself. We have obviously learnt nothing from those defeats. Time this side started living up to their potential.

Well done Leinster. Ulster need to learn and adapt their game!! Leinster played very poorly for large stretches of that game and we still couldn't do a thing about it because they have so totally figured out how to defend us.

Well, Leinster vs Glasgow it is. I think that's a fair reflection of the season too.

Ulster need to learn how to win games. They had only two players who would have made the Leinster team - Henderson and Trimble, so the result was expected.

Madigan also showed he is D'Arcys successor. He is not a 10 but a 12 and if O'Connor has any rugby sensibility he will play him there.

Very interesting. Nowhere near as intense a game as last nights, but equally close.

What interested me was that compared to Glasgow, the quality off the bench from both sides - apart from Madigan for Leinster - is inferior.

My gut feel is therefore that if Glasgow are within a score by 60, even atbthe RDS, they will probably edge it.

2 weeks time would be a hell of the time to end the RDS hoodoo.
Can't think of a tougher place to play. It's going to be brutal.

I remember watching last year's Rabo final and, despite losing, had a clear feeling Ulster were finally a team Leinster feared and they were glad to get off the pitch with the win. That was progress from Twickenham obviously but where do we stand now?

We've either been treading water or gone backwards from that point. I would say we have gone backwards but we have some good signings coming in...

Watching the recording now... I had conked out at 03:30 here.

Commiserations Ulsters fans. Really thought they might turn the corner this year.

Well done Leinster. From what I gather above -they weren't the entertainers of previous years but had enough composure to keep within striking distance - then struck when it counted. Anyway... will have to watch the rest of it to see for myself.

Ulster proved impotent in Leinsters 22, really missed Nick Williams, or any guile from the backline. The fact that this isnt a great Leinster side makes this a tough defeat to take, but well done to our southern cousins.

I can't be the only person to realise that Rob Kearney was MOM for 2 incredible pieces of illegal play, playing the ball on the ground twice after making a tackle close to the Leinster line. Both should have resulted in pens, and after a tackle on Payne (when he was gesturing for the TMO, wrongly, but the ref should have seen it, right in front of him) it was a stonewall yellow that could have been game changing. They were blatant offenses that went unpunished, it's getting a little hard to take...

Only thing that can be said for sure is that Ulster are due a lot of the old rub of the green next season, because we seem to under some sort of gypsy cure decisions wise over the last couple of years...

George Carlin wrote:Leinster won't be in the final, Notch.

If you can get Pienaar and Afoa back, then Ulster will take them down - having watched the Leinster-Edinburgh game, I am fairly confident of that.

Ja Georgie?   

But I'm delighted its us two in the Final. As predicted back in Sept.

Bring a decent  crowd this time will ye?  

On form and momentum, Id fancy Warriors to win it, but,  it's a real open  Final. No idea how it will pan out. But, if Glasgow win it,  I'll be the 1st one to congratulate a club and team who I feel fully deserve it,  after being so close over the last two years.   Glasgow define all that is good about the PRO12.

Believe.

Nematode wrote:Well, Leinster vs Glasgow it is. I think that's a fair reflection of the season too.

Yup. The two best teams over the year made the Final. Weird eh?

I think if Ulster had found touch with two of those penalties it would have been Ulster's game, they are strange momentum shifters. I hate playing when I (or another kicker) miss touch, it really saps you.

Ulster weren't that great though, they really shone in the first 25 or so but not massively afterwards. I actually thought their scramble defense was pretty good, we saw McFadden, Dave K, Toner, Gooperth and Madigan all make line breaks (big ones too) but Ulster got back for most of them which is pretty impressive.

In a way you'd say that if Ulster weren't so canny on the floor (Henry in particular) we'd have scored a few more tries as we burst that line a few times and made serious gainline inroads.

Thought selection for both sides was a little strange. Reddan only just back had a very, very poor game. I thought Roux was actually a good call when it was made and would stand by that. Ulster probably should have kept Marshall at 12 when they were lacking Nick Williams. Realistically the superior Leinster bench won the game. Bringing on SOB, Cullen, Ross, Madigan and Kirchner is a pretty good place to be in.

Gibson wrote:

George Carlin wrote:Leinster won't be in the final, Notch.

If you can get Pienaar and Afoa back, then Ulster will take them down - having watched the Leinster-Edinburgh game, I am fairly confident of that.

Ja Georgie?   

But I'm delighted its us two in the Final. As predicted back in Sept.

Bring a decent crowd this time will ye?  

On form and momentum, Id fancy Warriors to win it, but,  it's a real open  Final. No idea how it will pan out. But, if Glasgow win it,  I'll be the 1st one to congratulate a club and team who I feel fully deserve it,  after being so close over the last two years.   Glasgow define all that is good about the PRO12.

Believe.

Fair do's Gib my lad. And yes, you did predict it back in the autumn although with our incredibly weak start to the season, it's a real feat for us to have made it to the final this time.

A sign of a truly great team is the one that can still shut a game out despite not playing very well and that's Leinster all over. For all that your fans may complain about the new coach and lack of Sexton, the fact remains that you're here again. For balance though, this has to be the most beatable Leinster team I've seen for 5 years and it's definitely on. If the game is anything like last year's semi, they're going to have to bring in extra medical staff for the players because it's going to be brutal.

You can bet your pale, celtic petoot that we're going to be bringing a load of mental fans with us. I never, ever needed an excuse to go to Dublin. 10,000 Glasgwegians with a pass from their wives and husbands to go to Dublin for the weekend? What could possibly go wrong? I hope that you've got enough beer.

It's going to one clinker of a final. I don't see anyone beating Glasgow but being half Leinster myself I'll be 100% behind the boys in blue and if anyone can do it they can. Despite being gutted at Ulster's season being over a part of me is glad we'll see BOD one last time, a final for a final hurrah.

The game last night was there for Ulster to take and we didn't. Missed touches and Paddy Jackson going off were telling as well as the impact Leinster's bench had. Not playing Marshall and Cave in the centre and JP at fullback was very telling too. C'est la vie. Next year we'll maybe have less injuries and more luck at the business end of the season.

Well done Weegies and Les Blues, can't wait for the battle royale.

I hope this game has settled the Jared Payne to 13 debate ahead of next season and we see him back in his best position. If he wants to put his own desire to be playing at 13 above the needs of the team, let him go and do it somewhere else- we've no shortage of talented centres and the money we'd save would let us go after a fullback to replace him. Its not worth having to realign the whole back line to accommodate one player. The wishes of one player should never come before the good of the team.

We need guys who will bleed for the jersey and put Ulster first and as much as Payne and Afoa are quality players, maybe they don't prioritise Ulster enough and we can move forward as a group better without them. Payne seems to think being the heir apparent to BOD is more important than what we need as a team and, well, we all know about Afoa.

Payne in the centre is a short term solution, he'll be stopping us from trying younger guys there. If he insists on it, he can go and insist on it somewhere else. We can go after a big name to replace him as fullback and try Olding at 13.