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Leinster statement: Province 'disappointed' with walkover decision

(Photo by PA)

Leinster have outlined their disappointment with the EPCR decision to cancel their Friday night Heineken Champions Cup match at Montpellier and give the French side a 28-0 walkover win. Virus outbreaks at both clubs had dominated the build-up to the round two match but both clubs named their teams on Thursday and Leinster were all set to fly out from Dublin on Friday morning. 

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However, that trip has now been binned after EPCR took action, awarding Montpellier a victory that has left Leinster unhappy. An EPCR statement read: “Following a meeting of an independent match risk assessment committee, EPCR has been advised that the Champions Cup fixture between Montpellier and Leinster cannot go ahead safely. 

“The contest in Pool A is therefore cancelled with Montpellier awarded the match on a 28-0, five-match points basis, in accordance with the tournament rules. 

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“The match risk assessment committee, made up of medical doctors from EPCR’s medical advisory group as well as an independent medical specialist with experience in virology, advised EPCR of its concerns following new positive Covid-19 test results from the Leinster playing squad and regrettably the decision was made to cancel the match.

“EPCR would like to acknowledge the efforts by both clubs to fulfil the fixture and would also like to emphasise that awarding the match to Montpellier is a tournament management measure with the objective of ensuring that all fixtures in the 2021/22 Heineken Champions Cup are accounted for and not a sanction.”

It was at 18:01 on Thursday when EPCR made public their decision and Leinster, who began their campaign with a win over Bath last Saturday, quickly responded, issuing their own statement ten minutes later at 18:11. “Leinster management has expressed its disappointment with EPCR over the decision to award a 28-0 win in Montpellier’s favour.

“The Leinster squad and staff have had five rounds of antigen tests and four rounds of PCR tests in the last six days and a group of players and staff, who have all come through each stage of those tests, had been selected to represent the club in France on Friday evening and arrangements made accordingly.

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“As a result of these test results and the measures implemented by Leinster, a letter was issued today [Thursday] from Public Health Ireland confirming that the group could travel to France for the game. At all times Leinster have complied with all measures and protocols required of the club by EPCR, and by the HSE, and will continue to do so.

“While we are disappointed with the outcome of today’s decision by EPCR, our focus now is the health and well-being of all our players and staff and we would like to put on record, as a club, our sincere thanks to John Ryan and all the medical team supporting those players and staff.” 

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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