A selection of the “keyboard warrior” reactions after the full-time whistle of our featured matches of the weekend.
If you’d like to contribute stay tuned to our Facebook page for our “Feel free to leave your thoughts…” posts which show up around full time after Leinster & Ireland matches.
Conor Cronin All lost in the first half. When you know they've fellas who can kick from miles you have to be careful and they weren't. Those penalties were the difference.
I hate the streak had to end to sarries but they played the ref better in general.
If I were a coach I'd be question scrummaging angles
Russ Rafter To give Saracens so may kickable penalties & expect to win is unforgivable. I can't like Saracens because of cheating on & off the pitch, today they deserved to win. Sad.
Paul Smith Cant give a team like Saracens at 19 point lead at half time and expect to win. The scrum was demolished and we gave away penalties like candy ar Halloween. The missed chance just before half time when he had penalties stacking up against them and then they come down and score was the real killer. I find it hard to congratulate Saracens even though they were the better team, as a club, I have absolutely no respect for them, and that's not bitterness for today, that's based on their years of cheating.
Andrew Phipps Can’t help but feel that if that game was in front of a full house of fans, Leinster would have pushed on after the Larmour try and closed the game out.
Gav Heg I'm not convinced Leinster were at fault for the majority of the scrum penalties, it looked to me like sarries had it pre planned to take a step back on one side and changed it up. It worked and worked well tho but was not helped by the back row focusing breaking over scrummaging. So painful to watch. On the day sarries deserved it but as a club they don't. Leinster didn't seem to know how to deal with the pressure until the second half.
Reenen Stenekamp I was wrong. Leinster isn't the strongest team alive. But neither is Saracens.
Sebastian Brennan All credit to Saracens. They had 4 months to prepare for one game (as they were demoted already) and they definitely did their homework. First half looked like McCall read Leinster tactics book before the game, Saracens had an answer for everything. Great team effort in the second half, but unfortunately not enough this time. Future looks bright tho with all the young players in the team.
Clive Young They killed us in the scrum and competed so much better for the turnover
Jackie Mc Causland It didn’t look like the Leinster we’ve seen all season in that first half. Sloppy handling and conceding early penalties gave Sarries all the momentum. Better in the second half when we injected pace and intensity and the Larmour try was well worked but their scrum killed us and being turned around and losing territory every time we got into their half was soul destroying, we’d no response to that. Thought subs did well and I think I’d have JGP ahead of Luke now.
Andrew Potts It seems so easy in hindsight for Saracens, attack Leinsters scrum and let that dictate the small margin between the two sides.
Eamon Phelan Disappointing, I admire Leinster but did they learn anything from last year , Johnny cannot play territory, Saracens didn’t turn down any kicks at goal and they know how to win , same as England same as NZ , Leinster close to pinching it , what does this mean for Ireland ???
David Ryle Better team won on the day poor first half.
Cian Greally Need to switch porter back to loose head to get a bulkier more powerful front row one furlong is back, badly miss a fit dan leavy, baird matched the physicality when he came on. I wonder can dev still mix it against the elite teams.
Tony Doyle Leinster looked like amateurs, to many mistakes for a quarter final, some good play in the second half but first 40 not good.
(context - TLH went on in other tweets to clarify this thought, click here for the full thread. I just thought this one tweet exemplified what a lot of fans were thinking after fulltime JLP)
Nigel Quigley Slow first half, better team in the second by some way even though the scrums still didnt function. Sarries holding on a bit in the end, gutted for Leinster, really thought they would win this one, hard luck guys.
David Harold One word. Scrum
Shane Mcdonald I’m not using it as an excuse but is the constant rotating and swapping of players really that helpful I know lads need game time and players need resting and so forth but I just think there have been changes on top of changes all the time recently especially coming into this game
John Willie Conroy For all the dept people talk about leinster having they had nothing in the front row. Healy has had a great career but he needs a replacement. Luke McGrath I just never rated him. Positive Baird is a class act
Colm Jordan Tadhg Furlong was sorely missed.
Henry Sellars Terrible first half. Penalties everywhere. MOTM deserved Yellow or Red for Sexton tackle imo. NOT MOTM. Worst 1st half performance of the season set us up for a loss. Gonna wear my Clermont colours and hope they get their maiden..... (4 hours later) Christ. ABS then...
Many thanks to all who offered opinions.
Look out Monday for our match writeup JLP
