{"id":428140,"date":"2026-05-02T04:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428140\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:55:12","slug":"cian-tracey-after-underwhelming-leinster-stint-its-time-for-rieko-ioane-to-step-up-and-deliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428140\/","title":{"rendered":"Cian Tracey: After underwhelming Leinster stint, it\u2019s time for Rieko Ioane to step up and deliver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Big-money signing has shown flashes of his quality but Blues need All Black to finish year on a high, starting against Toulon\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Rieko Ioane of Leinster celebrates with teammate Max Deegan after scoring their side's seventh try against Edinburgh. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3418308.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)\">Rieko Ioane of Leinster celebrates with teammate Max Deegan after scoring their side&#8217;s seventh try against Edinburgh. 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)\">This time last year, the rugby public was just about picking its collective jaw off the floor following Leinster\u2019s bewildering decision to leave Jordie Barrett out of the team for their home Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton Saints.<\/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)\">What transpired across the course of the 80 damaging minutes that followed at the Aviva Stadium exacerbated Leinster supporters\u2019 anger. They watched their side fall short in Europe again as, all the while, the best player in the tournament sat helplessly on the bench for the opening 50 minutes \u2013 by which stage Northampton commanded a lead they would ultimately not give up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big-money signing has shown flashes of his quality but Blues need All Black to finish year on a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13503,61,60,11287,28577,112],"class_list":["post-428140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cian-tracey","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-leo-cullen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}