Drinks all round on Leinster, but maybe not for Robson

TV VIEW:IMAGINE MARK Robson's checklist yesterday morning as he prepared for another tour of duty behind the microphone for Sky Sports on the deciding round of matches in the Heineken Cup. Notebook. Check! Stopwatch. Check! Stats book. Check! Crystal ball? Now, where on earth did that go? It was here a minute ago. Ah, there it is, under another hotel bed. Gotcha.

Who’d want to be a prophet? Poor old Mark was cast in the role of a modern day Nostradamus as he prepared for yet another match in a series that had kicked off for him on Friday night in Biarritz and finished up with him yesterday at the RDS for Leinster’s crunch encounter with Edinburgh. And, with calculator to hand, and an ear to events in Castres, he sought to keep us up to date with happenings here, there and everywhere as the final places were booked in the competition’s last eight.

Now, we know that Mark has his detractors. You’re unlikely to find them in the bars around Ravenhill where the man is considered a legend, but you wouldn’t have to travel too far from Thomond Park or the RDS to find supporters in red or blue jerseys nursing a pint who can’t stand the sound of his voice.

Me? I think he’s just a different kind of commentator who likes to augment what’s happening with a wee bit of colour and some of his own observations.

Anyway, you’ve got to take your hat off to him for winning one particular battle with the online pollsters who sought to get him booted out of the Sky commentary box. Tut-tut, now, there’s enough Irishmen losing their jobs without another one being pushed out of the booth just because he irritates people who see matches through red- or blue-tinted glasses.

So it was that Robson – still very much in a job – was in situ at the RDS for yesterday’s big showdown, where his side-kick, Scott Hastings, set the scene by firstly telling us that Edinburgh were “a bit of a bogey team for Leinster” and later adding fuel to the fire by reminding us that the visitors – albeit a light version of the real thing on this occasion, given that so many players were either rested on the instructions of the Scottish management or injured – were “a banana skin for Leinster”.

“I’ll bet Wasps were delighted (when hearing Edinburgh had made nine changes from the team that beat Castres last week),” said Robson with just a hint of sarcasm. At least we think that’s what it was.

Robson, for sure, wasn’t waving the Leinster flag; and we wouldn’t have expected him to either. But that analogy to Edinburgh players bursting out of their sporrans was not the kind of thing we really wanted to explain to our kids at lunchtime on a Sunday. It doesn’t bear thinking about, in fact.

More pertinently, Robson did relate to us that the atmosphere around the RDS was one with more than a little apprehension amongst the Leinster supporters.

“The mindset (of the supporters) is more, ‘we cannot blow this today’,” he told us in the run-up to kick-off. And even the most dyed-in-the-wool Leinster supporter would have to put his or her hand up and agree with the man and admit that such thoughts had genuinely run through his or her head in the days, hours and minutes building up to the must-win match.

By half-time, Leinster were on track for a win but were still tryless while, as the half-time studio analysts (in Bath), informed us Wasps were not having things their own way in Castres although I liked the line about Danny Cipriani’s try that at least gave the English champions some hope. “He managed to find a gap between a Russian secondrower and a Georgian hooker.” Said it all, really.

Back to the RDS, and Robson was making sure that Leinster supporters weren’t getting too comfortable. He wondered if the men in blue could find “precision” or “direction” or “incision”. And when the clock reached 62 minutes and Leinster for all their territory and possession had stilled failed to break through for a try, there was a hint of Nostradamus in the air as Robson reminded viewers that it wasn’t “beyond the bounds of possibility that Edinburgh could win this”.

Now, the bearer of bad tidings is never truly popular and Robson didn’t endear himself to Leinster viewers by providing the news that Wasps had taken the lead and scored a second try in Castres and, having figured out the permutations on his calculator with the dexterity of an Anglo Irish banker, added (gleefully?), that Wasps could top the pool if they managed to score another two tries and win.

Within a couple of minutes, though, Robson was the provider of good tidings (for Leinster supporters anyway) when he told us that Castres had retaken the lead and, then, with 79 minutes and 10 seconds on the clock at the RDS, relayed the news that Leinster were home and dry by virtue of Wasps losing in Castres.

By the end, Robson gave due credit to Leinster’s win. “It wasn’t a classic spectacle, but it’s huge for Leinster, (a) massive moment in such a nerve racking week.”

And who could argue with his assessment that Leinster are a team who provide the “weird” one week and the “wonderful” the next. They wouldn’t be Leinster if they didn’t.