{"id":291696,"date":"2026-01-19T02:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T02:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/291696\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T02:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T02:23:09","slug":"tony-ward-anyone-who-thinks-leinster-are-playing-well-is-deluding-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/291696\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Ward: Anyone who thinks Leinster are playing well is deluding themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Leinster's Sam Prendergast, right, celebrates with Luke McGrath after scoring their side's second try against Bayonne. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/d514f15f-b3f6-47fd-b726-b497ccf608e3.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Leinster&#8217;s Sam Prendergast, right, celebrates with Luke McGrath after scoring their side&#8217;s second try against Bayonne. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">So we\u2019re now down to one after Munster\u2019s disappointing exit from this Champions Cup in a limp fashion in Limerick albeit in a match that, much like Leinster in Bayonne, could have easily gone either way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">We accept the standards we have set for ourselves are high, and in Leinster\u2019s defence they have finished their pool with four wins from four, yet there is something just not right about their form and general tactical demeanour of late. Anyone who suggests otherwise is deluding themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster&#8217;s Sam Prendergast, right, celebrates with Luke McGrath after scoring their side&#8217;s second try against Bayonne. Photo: Brendan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,12861,12311,132,72537],"class_list":{"0":"post-291696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-leinster-rugby","12":"tag-munster-rugby","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tony-ward"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115919388950022156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}