European Cup Round 3 & 4 - Pool 3: Exeter v Leinster 10 & 16 Dec 2017

First topic message reminder :

Donnacha O’Callaghan says his Worcester team mates regard the PRO14 as a joke shop.   Despite what he and Ben Te’o try to tell them.  No international players and no relegation.   It’s a joke.  The European Cup on the other hand is the real deal when it comes to assessing the teams, they believe.  Exeter are everybody’s favorite second team in the Premiership, says O’Callaghan.  Over the two weekends, it’s Premiership vs PRO14 with Ulster, Leinster and Munster all involved in hiberno-anglo dust-ups and Saints v Ospreys.   Munster v Leicester has some appeal but the match that players not involved are really looking forward to is the showdown between the English table toppers and the Irish Conference B second placers.  

At first glance, it hardly looks fair.  One club dripping with money from swashbuckling TV deals, and further riches from its highly profitable union, and nearly 20 players drawn from NZ, Australia, SA, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Germany, and Tonga. The other largely surviving on homegrown talent and a couple of uncapped foreign imports.  One still whooping it up as a current league champion, the other hasn’t seen decent silverware since God was a boy or five years anyway.  

Still the Leinster players tried their best last weekend and scored a couple of tries on the barren turf of Sandy Park - for opposition teams that is - Exeter have the second meanest defence in the league with just 22 tries conceded and the most tries scored with 36 after 10 matches.   They’ve lost just 2 league games this season.  And they’re now 2 from 3 in Europe.   Leinster have 8 wins in the PRO14 Championship with 41 tries under their belt. They’re 3 from 3 in the Cup.  

Leinster are probably the best placed with bookies of the joke shop teams.   They’ll need to be at their very best over the two weekends if those odds are to be kept or reduced.

Leinster won the first away leg 18-8 and are now back at their large alternative home in Lansdowne Road for the return leg.  Exeter will be smarting and looking to show they have more than pick and go in their arsenal to grind down opposition teams.   Leinster won’t be lulled into a false sense of security a la their return Northampton game a few years ago.    Weather forecast is showing possibility of rain in Dublin, or it could hold off to just be a very cold windless Saturday afternoon.  There’ll appear to be a bit more width on the pitch for both teams to play to their fullest extent.   If it stays dry the try count should be higher than last week - but it’s still to tough to call who the winner will be.  


Possible Teams:

Leinster Rugby confirmed

15. Rob Kearney; 14. Fergus McFadden, 13. Garry Ringrose, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. Isa Nacewa; 10. Johnny Sexton, 9. Luke McGrath; 1. Cian Healy, 2. Sean Cronin, 3. Tadhg Furlong, 4. Devin Toner, 5. Scott Fardy, 6. Sean O’Brien, 7 Josh van der Flier, 8. Jack Conan

16. James Tracy, 17. Jack McGrath, 18. Andrew Porter, 19. James Ryan, 20. Dan Leavy, 21. Jamison Gibson-Park, 22. Ross Byrne, 23. Jordan Larmour

Exeter Chiefs Possible

15 ???? 14 James Short 13 Henry Slade12 Ian Whitten 11 Olly Woodburn 10 Gareth Steenson (capt)
9 Nic White 1 Alec Hepburn 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie 3 Harry Williams 4 Mitch Lees 5 Jonny Hill 6 Don Armand
7 Matt Kvesic 8 Thomas Waldrom

16 Jack Yeandle 17 Ben Moon 18 Tomas Francis 19 Sam Skinner20 Sam Simmonds 21 Will Chudley 22 Sam Hill 23 Jack Nowell

SecretFly wrote:He's injured.... All our blasted best players keep getting injured!! It's a bloody Mafia fix!

You're getting no sympathy from me I'm a Leicester boy. We've seen about five minutes of Manu in three years, missed Toomua for all of last season and now Genge and TV are injured in time for us to get stuffed by Munster tomorrow.

SecretFly wrote:Mikey, first you have to tell us why you guys boo a lot and then moan at the Irish for booing?  Every time I bring it up I can't get a straight answer, I just get Welsh throwing their toys.

Wales fans are a mouthy bunch, but the regional games is where most of the real fans go, unlike those plastic types you get in Dublin. For the internationals it’s pretty much everyone on board and most of them aren’t big rugby fans. We boo and jeer but at least we aren’t in denial about it. It happens here and there. I’m just not sure why you Irish get on a high horse about it. I have nothing but admiration for Irish rugby teams but the fans still get a thumbs down from me .

Well for our part, we Irish can do mind tricks...all of us.  We can readily hypnotise ourselves into believing we never boo, never cheat, never utter profane language in public, never take a seat that a little old lady might be needing more than ourselves, never be bad in bed or crap company in a pub.

We Irish have a survival instinct that allows us to easily forget our worst traits.

If you hoist this post up at a later date to prove we probably boo as much as the Welsh then I'll readily deny I wrote it.

Actually, we don't boo AS MUCH AS the Welsh anyway in reality...so we still have the moral high ground.

The fans in the ground yesterday were booing the fact that the officials refused to ref Exeter at the offside line. They were consistently offside and why wouldn't they be if they can get away with it. They'll boo Wales as well when they try it next Spring.

The officials were terrible yesterday. Healy should have seen red by the letter of the law. Exeter should have had at least one yellow for high hits. Neither side was penalised for rucking beyond the ball to get rucked back onto it. The ref got in the way of passes in the midfield. The linesmen were behind play. All of that said it was an enthralling contest. Exeter just ran out of steam a little in the last quarter.