Friendly Leinster v Ulster. Tallaght Stadium.

I believe Ulster had 14000 at their Friendly last week. The Capacity of this stadium is 6000 with some reserved for municipal employees if our last game there is anything to go by. Generally these never sell out as the games are not free for Season Ticket Holders.

The RDS is still recovering from the horse show and Donnybrook has had a new synthetic pitch installed over the summer.

Hard to know what type of side will be out for either team. I am guessing some more first teamers will be fed back in (Leinster only had 1 last week)

Discuss

Game is 16:00 on Saturday btw.

Well there's the difference in attendance explained then. Ulsters pre-season games are included in the season ticket.

Doesn't make much sense for them not to be- I mean Ulster have something just shy of 10k season ticket holders. If they all turn up and some of most of them buy beer and food etc. then Ulster are still doing well out of it. But then we have no incentive to move the game away from Ravenhill either.

Anyway, I'd expect a stronger team from both sides but with plenty of absentees who were on the Argentina tour. Hoping to see Bowe, Payne, Gilroy, Tuohy etc. who weren't. Would also like to see starts for Herbst and Murphy in the front row after impressive cameos last Friday.

Notch wrote:Well there's the difference in attendance explained then. Ulsters pre-season games are included in the season ticket.

Doesn't make much sense for them not to be- I mean Ulster have something just shy of 10k season ticket holders. If they all turn up and some of most of them buy beer and food etc. then Ulster are still doing well out of it. But then we have no incentive to move the game away from Ravenhill either.

Agreed. We can't include them as the RDS is never ready in time. I have advocated in the past that STHs could be admitted free providing they applied for tickets (perhaps for a nominal 1 or 2 Euro fee to cover admin) but I'd say the few thousand that turn up at 20 a head (15 for STH) probably cover costs as well if not better than the beer and food from the extra few thousand would.

Will the players get hazard pay moving that far from their plush surroundings?

I always feel they could do a real coup and move it outside of Dublin for this friendly fixture. Have a friendly with Ulster up in Louth or maybe get into the midlands and line up a friendly with Connacht, etc.

Dan Tuohy will captain the side against Leinster. Franco van der Merwe will partner him in the second row and call the lineout.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/rugby/ulster-rugby/dan-tuohy-locked-in-battle-to-retain-his-starting-role-at-ulster-30539033.html

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn who else is in, probably, but I expect a few more big names coming back into the side (whilst still not picking players who toured Argentina).

LEINSTER:

15: Zane Kirchner
14: Fergus McFadden
13: Brendan Macken
12: Noel Reid
11: Darragh Fanning
10: Jimmy Gopperth
9: Luke McGrath
1: Cian Healy
2: Bryan Byrne
3: Mike Ross
4: Kevin McLaughlin
5: Mike McCarthy
6: Jack Conan
7: Shane Jennings
8: Sean O'Brien CAPTAIN

OK!!!

Answer in kind Ulster

Leinster will be bringing a large playing contingent with them on the day and substitutions will be confirmed at the venue on Saturday.

Any sign of the Ulster team? Ah here it is.

Ulster XV and replacements to face Leinster, Pre-Season Friendly, Tallaght Stadium, Saturday 30th August (kick off 16:00): (15-9) L Ludik, M Allen, J Payne, S Olding, C Gilroy, I Humphreys, P Marshall; (1-9); A Warwick, R Herring, W Herbst, D Tuohy, F van der Merwe, R Diack, S Reidy, R Wilson (C); Replacements: R Murphy, J Andrew, D Fitzpatrick, A O’Connor, N McComb, C Joyce, C Ross, N Williams, C Black, K McCall, B Ross, L Stevenson, M MCComish, M Heaney, D Shanahan, S O’Hagan, R Adair, J Stockdale, R Scholes, R Andrew.

Two strong teams. Should be a good game

Just for easier reading...no offence Jen

15 L Ludik
14 M Allen
13 J Payne
12 S Olding
11 C Gilroy
10 I Humphreys
9  P Marshall

1 A Warwick
2 R Herring
3 W Herbst
4 D Tuohy
5 F van der Merwe
6 R Diack
7 S Reidy
8 R Wilson (C)

Replacements: R Murphy, J Andrew, D Fitzpatrick, A O’Connor, N McComb, C Joyce, C Ross, N Williams, C Black, K McCall, B Ross, L Stevenson, M MCComish, M Heaney, D Shanahan, S O’Hagan, R Adair, J Stockdale, R Scholes, R Andrew.

Should be interesting, I wish I could be there

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Will the players get hazard pay moving that far from their plush surroundings?

I always feel they could do a real coup and move it outside of Dublin for this friendly fixture.  Have a friendly with Ulster up in Louth or maybe get into the midlands and line up a friendly with Connacht, etc.

I would prefer they had a game in Kilkenny. In the midlands they would have to use Bucaneers ground which if that was the case they may as well just have the friendly in Galway as it is so close. In reality Ireland is so small and Leinster even smaller so no one is really that far from the RDS.

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:LEINSTER:

15: Zane Kirchner
14: Fergus McFadden
13: Brendan Macken
12: Noel Reid
11: Darragh Fanning
10: Jimmy Gopperth
9: Luke McGrath
1: Cian Healy
2: Bryan Byrne
3: Mike Ross
4: Kevin McLaughlin
5: Mike McCarthy
6: Jack Conan
7: Shane Jennings
8: Sean O'Brien CAPTAIN

That could be the team we send to Glasgow as well?

Woohoo- we've got Olding and Nick Williams back from injury. Looking good for the Scarlets now!

Thats two really strong XVs out. Wish I could see this- I reckon thats what the team for the Scarlets will look like.

Ulster only have the 13 forwards on the bench. Should be enough cover then?

Last week our match day squad was so big we used both the new home and away dressing rooms, whilst Exeter were banished to the smaller ones they used last season when the new stand was being built. The joys of pre-season.

Anyone going and able to report back?

thebandwagonsociety wrote:Will the players get hazard pay moving that far from their plush surroundings?

I always feel they could do a real coup and move it outside of Dublin for this friendly fixture.  Have a friendly with Ulster up in Louth or maybe get into the midlands and line up a friendly with Connacht, etc.

I'd say they would be too scared to stray too far from South Dublin as they probably would get a load of locals turning up wearing Munster jerseys

Its great they are going to Tallaght - huge number of people living there. They should have kept the ticket prices low to attract locals. There wouldn't be a huge amount of money floating around Tallaght.

thebandwagonsociety wrote:

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:LEINSTER:

15: Zane Kirchner
14: Fergus McFadden
13: Brendan Macken
12: Noel Reid
11: Darragh Fanning
10: Jimmy Gopperth
9: Luke McGrath
1: Cian Healy
2: Bryan Byrne
3: Mike Ross
4: Kevin McLaughlin
5: Mike McCarthy
6: Jack Conan
7: Shane Jennings
8: Sean O'Brien CAPTAIN

That could be the team we send to Glasgow as well?

Is McLaughlan and McCarthy not a pretty lightweight second row? Puts quite a bit of pressure on Ross and Healy. I assume Toner is injured?

Glasgow will likely deploy Nakawara and Jonny Gray in the boiler room. That's quite a powerful combination.

Interesting use of resource in the backrow for Leinster.

Really surprised to see Allen on the wing. Not sure his top end speed will be that good. Great to see Olding back and with Payne it is an interesting combination

Pete330v2 wrote:Just for easier reading...no offence Jen

None taken. I copied and pasted both teams from the Provinces websites so blame them for the formating.

funnyExiledScot wrote:
Is McLaughlan and McCarthy not a pretty lightweight second row? .

Yes for McLaughlin. (McCarthy is a stone heavier at the same height and packs a lot of grunt) Guarantee he will not be playing there next week. If Toner is not let play by the IRFU it will probably be Denton as MOC does not seem to like Ben Marshall.

They are the only players available until Douglas arrives, which is why McLaughlin is being given a run. He may have to fill in in case of injury.

He upped his weight about 4 kilos a couple of years ago to play in the 2nd row but said at the time that he was not comfortable at that weight as it robbed him of mobility.

I would be at least as concerned about having 2 x 6'4" 2nd rows as I would be about the weight

Will this game be on TV?

Can anyone confirm the above? It doesn't seem to be on TV as far as I can see.

I was just going to come on and write a post about how annoying it is that everyone always asks whether it's going to be on TV despite no pre-season friendly ever having been televised in this country as long as I've been following rugby. Facebook is full of people going 'is this on TV?' Why would it be on TV?

Probably could be though, since there is an obvious interest. Anyway, Ulster are 7-0 up after two minutes.

No harm in asking, and yes there seems to be a lot of interest.

10-7, good win for Ulster. We'll take some momentum from that. Sounds like a big defensive effort in the second half.

Reading some reports that Ulster were dominant in the scrum first half, which is great as Herbst won't face many better loose heads than Healy in the Pro12. If he can win that battle we won't miss the half-arsed version of Afoa we got last season at all.

Notch - Afoa would have been gone but a deal for a replacement fell through, so Humphreys struck a deal with John to mutual benefit - obviously not ideal but better than no TH.

I'll wait to pass judgement on WH when he's up against a tight five unit rather than a scratch collection of players, but so far so good.

Herbst looks built to scrummage. Sadly he looked very laboured when i saw him but thats after 72 hours in the country so its a nonsense to be too concerned. We will have to see. Any word on Olding. Dislocated finger seems to be the word. Next week will be very tough imo depending on who we have available

Looked good against Exeter though Stand

Who Herbst? I agree our scrum seemed to get a rocket when he came on but he looked about as mobile as me (which is sadly not very mobile).

Like i say he was only in the country a few days. If he holds his own against Healy it bodes well

Couple of match reports on UAFC saying Herbst did indeed get the better of Healy and we were dominant at scrum time.

He's here to scrum. I'm not toooo concerned about that.

According to the match report on the other site, Herbst had Healy going backwards, and one of the posters at the game commented that the Ulster scrum was dominant throughout.
Clancy penalized Ulster for early engagement, and from there Leinster scored their try.

well yes but bear in mind we will have one liability in ihumph for games. Hopefully he's grand. Seems like a decent start.

Ah Humphreys won't get near the squad for big games. If Jackson is injured, Olding will play before him.

Notch wrote:10-7, good win for Ulster. We'll take some momentum from that. Sounds like a big defensive effort in the second half.

Good work, men of Ulster. Reminds Leinster of what it's like to suck on the fuzzy lollypop of defeat.

Something which Glasgow will re-introduce them to next week.