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Leinster hold nerve to fend off Munster

Leinster held their nerve in a frenetic finish to edge a tense all-Irish Pro14 semi-final against Munster 16-15 on Saturday.

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Fresh from winning the European Champions Cup final last weekend, Leinster gave themselves breathing space with a Joey Carbery penalty that opened up an eight-point lead at the RDS Arena with four minutes to go.

Gerbrandt Grobler’s converted score brought Munster back within one, though, and left the visitors with just over a minute to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

But Munster, whose only win over Leinster at the RDS Arena came 10 years ago, fell just short in their efforts, leaving the hosts to prepare for a final against Scarlets where they will look to complete a European and Pro14 double for the first time – a feat no team has achieved.

Leinster came flying out of the blocks and had the game’s first try in just the seventh minute when James Lowe brilliantly flipped inside for Jack Conan to touch down.

A JJ Hanrahan penalty for Munster was quickly answered by Ross Byrne, and Leinster appeared destined for a certain score when Lowe broke clear down the left wing only to be denied by a brilliant covering tackle from Sam Arnold.

Munster exerted pressure in the forwards as the half wound down, but they were temporarily a man down when Jean Kleyn was sin-binned for a reckless wipe-out of Byrne just shy of the hosts’ tryline.

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The visitors rode out the numerical disadvantage, though, and Simon Zebo showed great feet before offloading for Keith Earls to squeeze over in the left corner.

The conversion was missed and Leinster extended the lead to five points with a Carbery penalty, the same man seemingly finishing the job by splitting the posts in the closing stages.

Munster ensured a dramatic finish when Grobler stretched for the line and touched the ball off the base of the post, but, despite making their way into Leinster territory, they were unable to find another scoring opportunity.

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I
IkeaBoy 40 minutes ago
Can Les Bleus avoid a Black-wash in New Zealand?

Forgive me, I meant BILLIONAIRES.


Altrad (Montpellier), Lorenzetti (Racing 92) & Wild (Stade Francais) have a combined NET worth of more than €10 billion! Altrad even gets to kit sponsor the national team despite the conflict of interest that would bring.


They are all cash cows as teams who go some length without winning major trophies still yield huge returns on the money their owners pump into them. The prize money is of little consequence even to serial winners. Any time they need a cash injection, they just hit up an investment partner.


Fiducial – the largest private shareholder in the league - has a 12% interest in Toulouse. They wouldn’t have to pay much in to get a cut of the €700 million broadcast deal, the bulk of which goes to the Top 14.  


Dupont – the league and indeed the games poster boy – is the product of rural dairy farmers rather fittingly as he is milked. His salary is a fraction of what he generates for his club, his country and for the sport.  Cash cow. And now recovering from his second major injury in as many years.


The clubs certainly don’t mess about when it comes to pumping money into the game but look at it in inflation terms.  It’s never at a higher rate year on year than the increase in their TV and broadcast deals. 


The club game has always been France’s priority. They got kicked out of the 5 Nations for almost 15 years because they paid players to play the game at club level despite its amateur status at the time. They were so very resistant to the eventual professionalism of the game. And openly so.


Their former Vichy government quite literally banned rugby league as a sport to clear the way for rugby union!


It’s a great league to watch and well supported but it’s a money league.  If you are going to mix metaphors and compare sports it’s not the French soccer league but the Saudi oil leagues that is a better comparison.  That’s what the Top 14 is in relative terms.


A lot of their current dealings around salary caps are shady. Proper shady. It was only a couple of seasons ago when Jaminet was ‘loaned’ 450K as a disguised payment to buy out his own contract to then move clubs. Interest free as well…

331 Go to comments
f
fl 2 hours ago
Springboks' dominance of the world rankings comes under increased threat

“Ireland entered RWC 2023 a full 12 points clear of England. They were only 5 ahead at the end. So England gained a massive 7 points against Ireland which is not a reflection of how either teams played: far from it.”

I completely disagree here! Ireland played better than England, but they started the tournament ranked first in the world on 91.82 points. Obviously Ireland were not the best team at the tournament so it makes sense that their ranking got (slightly) worse. England began the tournament ranked 8th on 79.95 points. Obviously they played much much better than that, particularly when you consider that they were ranked below Fiji and Argentina, and beat both of those teams (Argentina twice!) during the tournament, so a significant improvement in the rankings was deserved.


“The swing between England and Scotland was 6 points towards England. Scotland didn’t do much wrong bar get a ridiculous draw with Ireland and South Africa. They were #5th at the time but were literally eliminated by the draw.”

Again - that swing makes perfect sense when you consider England’s ranking before the tournament. England were rewarded for beating teams ranked ahead of them. Scotland had a horrible draw that led to them being unfairly forced out of the competition, but they weren’t really punished in the rankings - their ranking score went from 84.01 to 83.43; barely a change.


“Wales benefitted by the draw in 2023.”

They benefitted in the sense that they made a QF that they would not have made had they swapped places with Scotland, but they didn’t really benefit in the rankings. Their ranking rose from 78.26 to 80.64 because they won a pool containing Fiji and Australia - two teams ranked ahead of them at the start of the comp.


“In 2019 they made a semi after a French player was sent off early in that quarter final. So they benefitted from the double points in the RWC.”

You can only rise significantly in the rankings by beating teams considered better than you. Wales’ ranking only rose by 0.5 points after beating France, because France were considered at the time to be a worse side. The double points therefore only helped Wales by 0.25 points.


“if they stay 14th and 13 teams do better than them in the RWC then their defecit will widen and doubly so because the loss would be doubled.”

If Wales keep playing badly they will decline in the rankings, but they will hardly decline at all if they only lose to teams ranked above them. E.g. Using today’s ranking points, lets imagine Wales drew Ireland, Fiji, and Romania in their pool, losing against the first two but beating Romania, then lost to France in the R16. The worst case scenario (losing to Fiji, Ireland, and France by more than 15 points, and beating Romania by less than 15) would only lose Wales 0.66 points. The alternate scenario (coming within 15 points of Fiji and beating Romania by more than 15) would lose Wales just 0.29 points.

9 Go to comments
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