Leinster 30 Connacht 8:THE AFTER-match chorus from Leinster was one of imperfection and frustration and from Connacht disappointment and more frustration.
Anxiety levels were high around a chilly RDS. With 30 points on the board, a bonus point and no real injury concerns, you felt Leinster coach Joe Schmidt and captain Shane Jennings may have appeared inflexibly strict on the performance.
“I think we’re pretty level-headed,” said Jennings. “I don’t think the players are very happy with the way they played tonight for a majority of the game. There’s a lot of frustrated heads in there, including myself.”
Maybe they were already looking towards later this week when Ospreys arrive. The captain’s measure of Saturday’s offering against what the team will have to do to win their second match of the New Year didn’t bear much thinking about and another start like Saturday’s will have Leinster chasing Ospreys from the beginning.
Jennings also dolefully pointed out that the last time the Welsh champions arrived in Dublin, they left with the Magners League title.
That Connacht were able to put this young Leinster side into a full court press for the first 20 minutes was disconcerting, although the team eventually ran out clear winners with three second-half tries.
That Connacht were unable to take anything from that dominant opening period bar a 50-metre Ian Keatly penalty carelessly given by Leinster is now becoming a running sore for the visitors, who started the night with all of the urgency and momentum.
Exactly 20 minutes after the explosive opening they were 3-0 up and four minutes after that they were 5-3 down after Fergus McFadden perfectly timed his pass to put Dave Kearney galloping up the left wing in what was Leinster’s first constructive attack.
All Connacht coach Eric Elwood could do on the sideline was pull out his hair after his team had provided a full quarter of the match’s industry with virtually nothing to show for it.
It puts Leinster back into a comfortable position in the top four and Connacht, with just two league wins so far, above only Italian newcomers Aironi.
Whether the game was a sorry tale about Connacht’s continuing problems of unhelpful scheduling of matches, injury and an inability to convert their purple patches of creativity into numbers, or Leinster’s ability to win matches with all of their international players resting is a moot point.
Certainly those who caught the eye, Eoin O’Malley, Andrew Conway, McFadden, Kearney, Nacewa and Jennings, put in performances that said they can be relied upon when the regulars return. And that has typified Leinster this season, the challenges for starting positions from within the squad have been consistent and relentless. Seán O’Brien scored two tries last week and this week left the pitch to get stitches on a face wound, with Kearney scoring two this week. O’Brien is expected to be available for Friday’s Ospreys meeting.
Both of left wing Kearney’s scores were well taken. His first was about pace and finishing, his second just reward from a sweeping Leinster move right and then left, with the younger Kearney brother again making the line. A text of approval from Irish fullback and older brother Rob, who was resting as part of the IRFU’s player welfare program, was waiting for him in the changing room afterwards.
McFadden then cheekily dived over the prone bodies in a ruck to touch down in the corner, before he became provider for Leinster’s fourth try with a deft chip on the run that replacement wing Niall Morris gathered neatly after a kindly bounce in the 76th minute for the bonus point.
Connacht’s only consolation was that their score arrived at the end of the game through a number of hands and feet galloping out of their half, young winger Eoin Griffin, who had been showing enterprise throughout, making the final lurch to the line.
But by then, a couple of minutes from the real final whistle and not the phantom blast that had all the players running in at half-time before referee John Lacey hauled them back to take a lineout and finish out the half, the script had ended in Leinster’s favour.
Had they reversed the timing and put away a try in their opening period of glory then who knows what complexion that would have put on the match.
Elwood certainly thought it would have angled it more in their favour. But that’s the way it has been for Connacht these days, a team that can clearly move the ball latterly but lack bodies to punch through and break gain lines in the last quarter of the pitch.
They play again in Wales on Thursday, their third match in 11 days, a schedule that is surely proving very taxing.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 2 minsI Keatley pen 0-3; 24D Kearney try 5-3; 29I Nacewa pen 8-3. Half time. 49Nacewa pen 11-3; 56Kearney try, Nacewa con 18-3; 73F McFadden try 23-3; 76N Morris try, McFadden con 30-3; 78E Griffin try 30-8.
LEINSTER:I Nacewa; A Conway, E O'Malley, F McFadden, D Kearney; S Berne, P O'Donoghue; H van der Merwe, R Strauss, C Newland, N Hines, D Toner, K McLoughlin, S Jennings, S O'Brien. Replacements: S Keogh for O'Brien (13 mins), M Ross for Newland (40 mins), E Reddan for O'Donoghue (49 mins), E O'Donoghue for Hines (58 mins), N Morris for Nacewa (65 mins), T Sexton for Strauss (70 mins), I Madigan for Kearney (73 mins).
CONNACHT:T Nathan; E Griffin, I Keatley, K Matthews, B Tuohy; M Nikora, C Willis; B Wilkinson, A Flavin, J Hagan, M Swift, M McCarthy, A Browne, J O'Connor, E McKeon. Replacements: R Ah You for Hagan (52 mins), F Carr for Tuohy (58 mins), B Upton for Swift, Ta'auso for Nikora (both 63 mins), D Murphy for Flavin, D Rogers for Wilkinson (76 mins).
Referee : J Lacey(IRFU).
