United Rugby Championship: Leinster 36 Stormers 12
If Dan Sheehan had written a wish-list prior to the game, he would have been able to tick off most of the items. Six months after suffering an ACL injury in the first Test defeat to South Africa at Loftus Versfeld, he returned to the match environment to captain Leinster to victory, scored a brace of tries and picked up the man-of-the-match award.
While there were one or two glitches, Sheehan’s performance was hugely impressive and contained the usual quota of standout moments: a thumping tackle, a charge down and two smart finishes for tries, neatly wrapped in a 60-minute bundle before he was replaced by John McKee.
Leo Cullen deserves credit for his decision to appoint Sheehan captain for the second time in the player’s Leinster career. It gave the hooker a different focus in the build-up to the match, a diversion from any nagging doubt about how his knee would stand up.
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Sheehan acknowledged: “I was nervous coming back for the first time but if you have the captaincy, you just worry about other people, worry about my messaging during the week, leading a few meetings, and getting your brain to think about other people rather than my knee because it is obviously going to be in the back of my head a little bit.”
He was surrounded by a leadership cadre that included top international players which lightened the load, but no one could assist in overcoming the psychological hurdle and that first robust physical test of the surgeon’s handiwork.
Sheehan explained: “I think once we got into the game, we turned them back, got a 50/22, were on top of them, [made] a few tackles, you are not thinking about the knee, you are thinking about the game. So, in that sense, it got me thinking about the game rather than the knee.”
“A lot of work has been put into me, I’ve said it a few times now, but Emma Galvin my physio has left absolutely no stone unturned and made my life really easy and I didn’t have to make any decisions. She told me what to do and I just did it. I feel 100% confident on the knee. There is no hesitation at all.
“I don’t think we missed a marker really, there were no real setbacks. It [the injury] played ball with us. Sometimes those things get tricky, and you have to set it [the return date] back, but I was also very sure in my head that I wouldn’t rush it.
“If there was anything that I was hesitant about we could push it back. I wanted to play last week; I was itching to go. I was sick of watching everyone else play and wanted that nervous feeling of getting back on the pitch. I’m delighted at how it went.”
Sheehan wasn’t alone in returning from an injury layoff, James Lowe discarded the odd fleck of rust to produce several typically excellent impacts in terms of creating tries, working hard off his blindside wing to provide a scoring pass and a pinpoint crosskick – Sheehan owes him at least a tenner – and one brilliant tackle that forced a breakdown penalty.
Sheehan, Lowe and Jack Boyle, industrious in his work, linked up with Ireland in Portugal on Sunday, while Rabah Slimani, brilliant in the scrum, returned to the French national squad. Leinster’s other marquee names enjoyed a prominent evening. RG Snyman threw as many offloads (six) as the entire Stormers team, while Jordie Barrett exuded quality in everything he did; and that’s a long list.
Max Deegan, Scott Penny and Alex Soroka – the latter did trojan work to disrupt the Stormers’ throw – were conspicuously good, Brian Deeny too had a fine game, while Andrew Osborne was alive to possibility, a point highlighted in the second of his two tries. Diarmuid Mangan, Cormac Foley and Charlie Tector provided momentum and quality from the bench.
Liam Turner took a blow to the ankle from which he’s just recovered while Luke McGrath was up and about and in good form according to Cullen having been stretchered off; he took a knee to the head while making a tackle.
The Stormers lost Springbok tighthead Frans Malherbe to flu before the match and when outhalf Manie Libbok departed injured just before halftime the pilot light of their attack was extinguished. Head coach John Dobson was gracious in defeat, acknowledged that Leinster deserved to win and eschewed the notion pursued by some of the South African media that the officiating had been pivotal to the outcome.
Referee Eoghan Cross, who stepped in when Italian referee Andrea Piardi couldn’t travel because of Storm Éowyn, awarded 30-penalties and four free-kicks but didn’t go to his pocket for a card. He tried to give the players every chance, but they didn’t reciprocate that goodwill. It made for a staccato affair, dominated by the shrill blast of the whistle.
Leinster led 15-7 at the interval, Osborne scored in one corner, Sheehan the other, both the product of excellent team interplay. Ben Loader crossed for the Stormers. Barrett and Sheehan’s second try gave the home side a bonus point inside a three-minute spell.
Lowe was denied another before Osborne rounded off the scoring with an intercept on the Stormers’ line. Leinster finished the game with 10 forwards on the pitch. Evan Roos’ late effort offered scant consolation for the visitors. Leinster move on, having neatly side-stepped what could have been, and was for a while, a tricky assignment.
SCORING SEQUENCE – 3 mins: Byrne pen, 3-0; 10: Osborne try, Byrne con, 10-0; 20: Loader try, Libbok con, 10-7; 40 (+1): Sheehan try, 15-7. Half-time: 15-7. 58: Barrett try, Byrne con, 22-7; 61: Sheehan try, Byrne con, 29-7; 67: Osborne try, Byrne con, 36-7; 78: Roos try, 36-12.
LEINSTER: H McErlean; A Osborne, L Turner, J Barrett, J Lowe; R Byrne, L McGrath; J Boyle, D Sheehan (capt), R Slimani; RG Snyman, B Deeny; A Soroka, S Penny, M Deegan. Replacements: C Tector for Turner (28 mins); C Foley for McGrath (HIA, 38); D Mangan for Deeny (55); J Culhane for Soroka (59); P McCarthy for Boyle (60); J McKee for Sheehan (61); W Connors for McErlean (64); R McGuire for Slimani (70); Deeny for Foley (76).
STORMERS: W Gelant; B Loader, R Nel, J Roche, L Zas; M Libbok, P de Wet; A Vermaak, J Dweba, N Fouche; JD Schickerling, R van Heerden; D Fourie, B-J Dixon, E Roos. Replacements: S Moerat for Schickerling (29 mins); W Simelane for Libbok (38); A-H Venter for Dweba (58); P de Villiers for Fourie (59); H Jantjies for de Wet (63); B Harris for Fourche, M Theunissen for Dixon (both 64 mins).
Referee: E Cross (IRFU).
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