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Leinster v Bulls
Venue: RDS Arena, Dublin.
Kick-off: 7.35pm.
On TV: Live on TG4 and Premier Sports.
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When Leinster kicked off their season against the Bulls last September at the Aviva Stadium, crowd capacities had just been increased to 75 per cent and a crowd of 19,419 who were voracious for some live rugby, and live sport, turned up at the Aviva Stadium to witness Johnny Sexton and co hit the ground running with an impressive 31-3 win over the then recently crowned Currie Cup champions.
Roll on nine months to Leinster’s 27th game of the season in all competitions and they host the Bulls again in the semi-finals of the URC, an altogether more important and season-defining game, and yet ticket sales have, disappointingly, only exceeded 10,000.
This may well rise to 12,000 come kick-off but clearly, despite a knockout tie against one of the biggest brands in world rugby, the arrival of the South African sides hasn’t quite fired the imagination. What the contrasting attendances also suggest is that the rugby season has slightly outstayed its welcome, amid other recurring themes at recent URC games - a post-Euro hangover, terrestrial television coverage and competing against All-Ireland championships in full flow earlier than usual.
Perhaps partly fearful, and certainly respectful, of the relatively unknown, Leinster were highly motivated for that seasonal opener, a game which Tadhg Furlong subsequently described as “a big game for the organisation”.
Josh van der Flier set his and Leinster’s season in motion that evening with a jet-heeled finish from outside the 22 in the seventh minute and Andrew Porter’s try earned a 14-0 lead by the 14th minute. As Leo Cullen put it yesterday, his players need to reproduce their mindset from that opening week.
“Well it would be fantastic if we were to start the game like we did that day. There was a lot of, not trepidation, but there’s that nervous energy in the group, isn’t there? Because it’s a new challenge. We’d seen the Bulls be pretty dominant in the Currie Cup. Our guys were seeing the footage of them because you weren’t really too sure what the level would be.
“Again, they had to travel and had to deal with the celebrations, the fallout from winning the (Currie Cup) competition. For our guys, they had nervous energy going into that game and put in a good performance that day. It’s important we have that nervous energy, not just be expecting that it’s going to click into gear for us, we’re going to have to make it happen. We’re going to have to work hard and we’re going to have to fight and scrap for everything we get out there.
“Again, hopefully we get a big crowd,” he added, optimistically. “It’s a big occasion and this is something that fans get very excited by. I grew up watching these teams. You have them on such a pedestal. The Bulls were a real dominant force against the best of Australia and New Zealand as well. They were a properly dominant force team.”
In their heyday the Bulls won Super Rugby three times between 2007 and 2010, and under the wily Jake White, the Springboks’ 2007 World Cup-winning coach, they have regrouped impressively this season. They do not have the same volume of high-profile World Cup winning players as the Stormers and the Sharks, as evidenced by White naming a dozen of the starting XV from last September in retaining the side which dramatically beat the Sharks last week while restoring the fit-again Bismarck du Plessis and the electric Kurt-Lee Arendse to the bench.
Starting the season with a five-game tour to Europe, the Bulls lost five of their first six matches, but they arrive at this semi-final having won nine of their last 10 games.
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The forecast is for a warm, breezy and showery day and of all the South African sides they have the game best equipped for northern hemisphere conditions - a powerful scrum and maul, good kicking game, go-to big, straight rumblers in their back-row, which features two of the URC’s five most successful carriers this season in former Ulster talisman Marcell Coetzee at number 8 and inside centre Harold Vorster.
With Coetzee leading the way on seven offloads they also pass the ball out of the tackle more than Leinster, or indeed than any other team in the competition (228).
As they again showed last week, they are particularly proficient when going to their direct power plays in the opposition 22. With the in-form 34-year-old Cornal Hendricks revelling in his switch from wing to outside centre they also possess pace on the edges, or as Felipe Contepomi put it, “four Robert Baloucounes”.
Leinster are again missing the power and dynamism of Ronan Kelleher (shoulder) and James Lowe (shin), which again makes you wonder if they were right for that Champions Cup final defeat by La Rochelle, as well as Hugo Keenan (hand) even though he trained yesterday.
Even so, with Jack Conan and Robbie Henshaw (two of the Lions quartet missing form that seasonal opener) restored to the starting XV and Johnny Sexton on the bench, Leinster have plenty of potency about them.
The six-day turnaround looks tougher for the Bulls given they also had to travel. The bookies handicap odds of 20 points still looks excessive, but if Leinster reproduce the physicality shown against Leicester and Toulouse, their rapid-fire recycling and tempo will again prove too hot to handle.
Leinster: Jimmy O’Brien; Jordan Larmour, Garry Ringrose; Robbie Henshaw, Rory O’Loughlin, Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan (Capt), Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan. Replacements: Seán Cronin, Cian Healy, Michael Ala’alatoa, Ross Molony, Ryan Baird, Luke McGrath, Johnny Sexton, Ciarán Frawley.
Bulls: Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Gerhard Steenekamp, Johan Grobbelaar, Mornay Smith, Walt Steenkamp, Ruan Nortje, Marcell Coetzee, Arno Botha, Elrigh Louw. Replacements: Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, WJ Steenkamp; Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Kurt-Lee Arendse.
Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR).
Betting: 1/40 Leinster, 50/1 Draw, 14/1 Bulls. Handicap odds (Bulls +20pts) 10/11 Leinster, 18/1 Draw, 10/11 Bulls.
Forecast: Leinster to win.
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