Leinster fly as O'Gara lands it

RUGBY: HEINEKEN CUPAFTER LANDING a match-winning drop goal in overtime for the second successive game, against Castres in Toulouse, Ronan O'Gara could probably have floated home to Cork on Saturday night. In the event, fog in Cork obliged the squad's charter flight to circle the city before being diverted to Dublin, though as Denis Fogarty suggested on board: "Let Rog land it. He can land anything."

So much for the theory that the weekend’s Heineken Cup activity couldn’t come close to matching the drama of the opening weekend. Not when O’Gara and Munster are around, and following on from the Scarlets’ irreverent bonus-point win at Northampton on Friday night, it sets up the first of the two back-to-back meetings between the Scarlets and Munster in Llanelli on Saturday, December 10th nicely indeed.

This is a recurring theme throughout five of the pools, including Pool Three, where Leinster and Bath beat Glasgow 38-13 and Montpellier 16-13 at home respectively yesterday to set the pace in advance of their back-to-back meetings in December, the first of which takes place a day after the Munster game across the Severn Bridge.

Ulster’s task is already looking stiff after failing to extract even a bonus point in their 20-9 defeat on Saturday at Leicester, who now meet Clermont on successive weekends, while Ulster seek to extract a maximum 10-point haul from their meetings with Aironi.

Connacht host three more home games in succession, culminating in the first of their clashes with Gloucester, a little wiser and enhanced by the experience of their momentous encounter with a classy Toulouse outfit.

While Guy Noves’s men were taking their roadshow to the most western point on the Heineken Cup map, the pink city belonged to Munster and O’Gara on Saturday, and afterwards he couldn’t disguise how much he revels in the responsibility.

“I could have easily missed but I didn’t miss. You put yourself into the position. That’s my responsibility, my job, what I get paid for; I love it. It was nicely struck but I think we probably shouldn’t have put ourselves in that position.”

O’Gara admitted the overall performance was mixed and that he was guilty of an awful penalty miss in the first half, but suddenly they and the Scarlets are seven and eight points clear of Northampton who, having come within 40 minutes of going through last year’s competition unbeaten, are now seeking to become the first team ever to qualify for the quarters after losing their first two games.

“The belief is we want to win this competition and that will never change because of the values we have in Munster and because of how important this competition is. They [young players] will learn but I think sometimes you learn an awful lot from mistakes as well.”

Leinster looked like the reigning champions in quickly setting about a Glasgow team who were on a run of five successive wins, beginning at the RDS in the Rabo 12. The home side were ruthlessly efficient in generating quick ball at the breakdown and had a bonus point by half-time through tries by Eoin O’Malley (two), Rob Kearney and Gordon D’Arcy.

“I thought there was more fluidity in what we were doing. I thought the collision and breakdown stuff was really good,” said coach Joe Schmidt. “We profited from that, with Eoin getting over for two tries. We had to build some combative phases to get over a few times. The last try of the first half was a little bit easy. That space on the scoreboard took a lot of pressure off in the second-half.

“That bonus point can be so important in these pools that are so competitive. I thought our second 40 against Connacht, with the young guys, was out best but I think our first 40 here, since the guys have been back together, was certainly our best of the season.”

For the Toulouse forwards’ coach, Yannick Bru, satisfaction was undermined by failing to fulfil their half-time target of a bonus point. Despite a dislocated shoulder for Romain Millo-Chluski, the Euro kingpins enjoyed their foray to the west.

“I thought [the occasion] was fantastic,” said Bru. “We felt the passion in the city today and the welcome was fantastic: the people have a lot of respect and are polite and full of emotion. That’s why we play rugby, and I think Connacht and the crowd here gave a very good impression of rugby and I wish them all the best for the future.”

“They were inexperienced on certain turnovers but as we expected they had a very good lineout, and a good pace to their rugby. Our target was to stop the speed of their game and contest the rucks, and we did that. That’s why their gameplan was not achieved as well as last week. But this team are very clever and very talented. They have worked a lot on their game and the future will be very good for them.”