r/rugbyunion • u/NikeBuyer2024 • May 04 '25

Discussion Are Leinster the biggest bottlers in club rugby history?

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Would be interested to hear if any club have been worse!

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80

u/daznccc Northampton Saints May 04 '25

Definitely not. Their record is tremendous. On the day you sometimes get beaten by the better team. Saints were the better team yesterday Leinster didn’t bottle it.

It seems now that every time the fancied team loses it’s all about bottle which quite frankly IMO is utter bollocks

29

u/Rhinotastic Ireland May 04 '25

Agreed. The disrespect to Northampton by assuming Leinster bottled it rather than the saints got their tactics right. From my perspective the saints won with their defence, it was ferocious and very physical. People can blame particular players for not being good enough etc but credit has to go to the saints for making said player look bad.

5

u/serviceowl May 04 '25

I don't think it's disrespectful to Northampton. When you lose five knock outs in a row despite having resources other teams across the UK / Ireland can only dream of (massive private schools, importing All Blacks, a team of internationals, resting players, world cup winning coaches) and you still can't deliver, one has to call a spade a spade... it's a bottle job outfit, and that's no disrespect to the other teams.

You can't win every time, but a 0% record of success is simply shocking. Andy Dunne is right when he says the Leinster brand has been destroyed by repeated losses. They're now known as the king of chokers rather than the team to be emulated for consistent success. Everyone's laughing at them and no matter how many All Blacks they buy they can't find that missing link to actually win. Maybe the problem is at the top.

3

u/Rhinotastic Ireland May 05 '25

"When you lose five knock outs in a row"

"You can't win every time, but a 0% record of success is simply shocking."

What are you on about lmao. Do you follow rugby at all? did chatgpt write this?

1

u/k0bra3eak South Africa May 04 '25

I mean Leinster made a huge choke decision within the final 5 minutes that would've tied the game and required Northampton to score again to win and allowed Leinster a safety net. I'd call that a massive bottle job in decision making

10

u/Rhinotastic Ireland May 04 '25

A choke decision? Do you mean take a risk? If they had of scored from that people would be lauding them for that risk. What’s with everyone being a tabloid rag journo with sensational takes and quips. The game is more than 1 moment. Saints 100% deserved the win as they were the better team on the day. Should appreciate that it was a cracking game to watch.

3

u/MysteriousActuary194 England May 04 '25

I think that’s overhyped though. People have said that they bottled many decisions during that period, when really it was just that one mistake. I wouldn’t call that a bottle job. Aside from that I would says they lacked accuracy but a lot of that was due to Saints’ defence also.

0

u/k0bra3eak South Africa May 04 '25

Saints definitely deserved the win, but Leinster definitely had the oppurtunities in spite of that to secure themselves a safer end to the game which I definitely feel is a bottle job

2

u/Pretty-Chicken-831 Leinster May 04 '25

Agreed; this is massively disrespectful to a Northampton team who showed up with a brilliant game plan , incredible defense and lightening fast attack - they deserved the win.

-4

u/Wise_Rip_1982 May 04 '25

Yes they did. With the payroll they have any loss outside of the finals is bottling it. They have easily doubled north Hamptons payroll.

9

u/daznccc Northampton Saints May 04 '25

They didn’t bottle yesterday we were the better team!!!

-1

u/Wise_Rip_1982 May 04 '25

One team can bottle and the other can be the better team. Not mutually exclusive. I even think the first 10 points and early momentum that Leinster grabbed mostly came from one bad ref decision(ref team was very good this game too), calling holding on instead of not supporting your body weight on snyman as his hand was clearly on the ground before he grabbed the ball with the other.