Leinster vs Edinburgh - Friday 15 April 2016

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LEINSTER


EDINBURGH
Players not considered due to injury: Mike Coman (calf), Jack Cuthbert (knee), Nathan Fowles (shoulder), Grant Gilchrist (arm), Will Helu (pectoral), Nasi Manu (neck), Fraser McKenzie (neck), Matt Scott (arm), Jade Te Rure (knee).


Edinburgh Rugby v Leinster, Friday 15 April 2016, RDS Dublin, kick-off 7.35pm

15. Blair Kinghorn

14. Damien Hoyland

13. Chris Dean

12. Phil Burleigh

11. Tom Brown

10. Jason Tovey

9.   Sam Hidalgo-Clyne



1. Alasdair Dickinson

2. Ross Ford (captain)

3. WP Nel

4. Anton Bresler

5. Ben Toolis

6. Jamie Ritchie

7. John Hardie

8. Cornell Du Preez



Substitutes

16. Stuart McInally

17. Rory Sutherland

18. John Andress

19. Alex Toolis

20. Magnus Bradbury

21. Hamish Watson

22. Sean Kennedy

23. Mike Allan



Leinster (63)

Playing For: Home Playoff

Run in: Ulster (A), Treviso (H)


Edinburgh (52)

Playing for: Top 6 Qualification

Run in: Munster (A), Cardiff (H)



Outlook

It's hard to see anything but a Leinster win here. This is an ideal opportunity for Leinster to get 5 points against an Edinburgh side that only mustered a try bonus point against Zebre in the final minutes. With a tough trip to Ulster the following week, this might be a good opportunity for Leinster to rest/not risk a few key players.

For Edinburgh, I don't think a top 6 place is vital. Of course it would be nice to see the likes of Toulon/Saracens/Wasps/Racing come to Murrayfield although it would not help to develop young players (or the whole team tbh). I'd like to see Edinburgh use the run-in to finish the season on a high and bring back the strong defence that has gone on holiday recently.

To be fair 21st, he also tried to attack the referee in the tunnel apparently.

That is definitely worthy of a long ban!

Yeah I've seen the incident and he was being held back by a few team mates. He was going for the ref which for all their faults, is totally unacceptable. If it was me, he'd be gone permanently.

Tattie Scones RRN wrote:Yeah I've seen the incident and he was being held back by a few team mates. He was going for the ref which for all their faults, is totally unacceptable. If it was me, he'd be gone permanently.

Given that he's 35 I suspect that will be the case!

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Oyannax player banned for 15 months for swearing at the ref in a Top 14 game.    Deliberate attempt to injure an opponent by a Leinster player, with considerable previous, 3 week ban.   A total disgrace.  These people are trying to destroy the game.    

BTW Mitrea remains an incompetent idiot.    

I am really not sure that McFadden deliberately tried to injure Hoyland, he just got into and awful position due to Hoyland's movement. Reckless, unintentional but could have caused serious injury to them both. I felt, at the time, that a YC was warranted at the very least and that an RC and citing would have been the most accurate outcome. Three weeks does seem a little short considering the lengths of other bans.

Do not agree about Mitrea, he is a very good ref that made an obvious mistake in his on field judgment. Still feel he is one of the better Pro-12 referee's, every ref makes a bad decision at times.

I have no beef with Mitrea. He got this one badly wrong but on the whole he isn't on my hit list of useless refs.

Clownshoes Clancy and The Gibbon are the two you have to really watch out for. On their day they can win/lose games.

Still maintain the only Pro 12 refs who are any good are the Welsh duo of Owens and Whitehouse. The rest are utterly dreadful.

I personally feel that Owens is not as good as he once was with more and more mistakes entering his refereeing. Still very good though.

Mitrea is a very good referee in my opinion and will only get better after realising and learning from his mistakes.

The referees I rate are:

Jaco Payper
Wayne Barnes
Nigel Owens
Chris Pollock
Jerome Garces

tigertattie wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:Do you two want a private thread just for the two of you??

oooo, they don't want that! Everyone knows that GC has his own little CCTV camera in these places where he likes to "watch"

I think Mitrea is ok. I remember when he started in the Pro12 we has truly awful. He has come on leaps and bounds. The real issue is with the TMO, not because he was a "homer" as some would say but simply because too often we see them cede to the referee.

Too often they use phrases like "maybe you should look at it again"....when they really mean is I think you are wrong.