D’Arcy: Leinster loss excusable but time is against them

Sport being a business, the first thing that came to mind after Sunday's game at the RDS was Dai Young had the opposite pre-season experience to Leo Cullen.

Only three of Leinster’s 23-man squad – young subs Luke McGrath, Cathal Marsh and Garry Ringrose – have been permanent fixtures in the group since July.

The rest were down in Carton House or, in Hayden Triggs’ case, playing NPC in New Zealand, while Zane Kirchner was away with South Africa.

This isn't as disastrous as it initially looks. Leinster have not become a bad team. It's just that Leo and Joe Schmidt have very different gameplans and systems.

That showed but, more so, the defeat was a reflection of how finely tuned this Wasps side have become. They have recruited exceptionally well this summer and only Joe Launchbury was away for a sustained period of time. And not as long as they expected him to be.

Basically they signed players who were not going to the World Cup.

That's what Leinster presumably felt was the case when offering contracts to Kane Douglas and Kirchner.

Most frustrating of all was the sight of Douglas producing herculean performances for the Wallabies last month. Leinster never saw any of that.

That acquisition should have left them with a world-class lock when the internationals were away but it just didn’t work out. That happens in business all the time. It is happening right now unfortunately.

Home-grown talent

The winning of three European Cups was achieved off the back of some very good recruitment by Leinster. Keeping hold of the best home-grown talent while strengthening the side with some of the best forwards to ever play the game produced a highly successful formula.

Rocky Elsom, Brad Thorn and Nathan Hines were all good business. Same goes for Isa Nacewa and I have no doubt that Ben Te’o will prove a great signing too.

Wasps have added that sort of quality in Nathan Hughes, Charles Piutau and Frank Halai.

The brilliant Piutau said one reason he was cut by the All Blacks was for agreeing terms with Ulster a season in advance. He was on the market so Wasps snapped him up. Hughes is a Fijian who has yet to qualify for England via residency but on this evidence he will be capped next year.

Add George Smith and Jimmy Gopperth to their recruitment drive and it looks like really good business. They clearly have the money behind them now and their house is in order.

So this game at this time proved too big an ask for the returning internationals. The Irish lads had a week off after the quarter-final defeat to Argentina with most of them returning for Treviso but this wasn’t the team Leo had planned to field against Wasps. Te’o and Nacewa had been key figures during the World Cup so their loss to injury was keenly felt.

The combinations looked rusty because they were so unfamiliar. Even Fergus McFadden and Noel Reid didn’t have much time together as a midfield partnership.

Ferg did bring a genuine physicality but the plan was to probably run Te’o there, or at least Luke Fitzgerald. Regardless, no three-quarter is going to shine off slow, medium ball behind the gainline.

Take Seán O’Brien out of any team and they are not the same force. We have seen this twice now in the past month.

It became clear that multi-phase plays were not going to break down this Wasps defence. Especially off slow ball. A moment of individual brilliance was needed. Losing Seánie changed the dynamic of the backrow. And the way Leinster wanted to play proved increasingly difficult.

So what did Wasps actually do to rack up a 33-6 victory (because they didn’t play a huge amount of rugby)? They kicked a reasonable amount as they adopted a similar approach to that of South Africa against New Zealand last month. The difference was how primed they were to strike on the counter-attack. They stifled Leinster at the breakdown without committing any more than two players to every ruck. A team with Smith on its openside flank will always be capable of slowing ball. He might be 35 but I still rate him as one of the best turnover merchants in the world. And he proved it again.

Leinster had the possession they would want to win a game, the endeavour was also there, but mistakes killed them. That’s a combinations thing. I know it looks terrible but it’s fixable.

Wasps came with a ballsy gameplan; attack the Leinster lineout and go after their scrum, because every team knows that to disrupt Leinster's first-phase ball is to stop them building the majority of their scores. Historically that's how we have lost to big French and English packs or to Munster.

Foothold

The impact of Seánie with Cian Healy coming on normally guarantees a sustainable foothold in a game. But that didn’t happen.

Wasps spread out across the field and waited for the turnover opportunity or a Leinster error, of which there were plenty. Then they attacked out wide at pace and found holes.

Sounds familiar, I know.

Wasps just looked like a really good team who have been building something potentially special for at least three or four months. No reason why Leinster can’t do something similar. The obvious problem is the time constraints placed upon them now. They have six days to get as many bodies back into the side for a must-win game at The Rec against a Bath side who seem even further down the track than Wasps.

It’s going to be very hard to qualify now with Wasps needing to beat Toulon to throw the pool into chaos. That’s possible. The old format lent itself to recovering after a first-up defeat. On-the-road wins are far tougher to come by now than in previous seasons.

But there is no need to panic and Leo won’t. Integrating so many players was simply too tall an order against a team whose business was done with barely any World Cup disruption.

This is not a nice place to be in. Whoever does get picked, whoever is fit enough, must carry over the gainline. That and fixing the set-piece are the areas of essential improvement.

Ringrose looked very sharp when he came on with one quality offload to put Ferg up the left wing. Both Ringrose and Reid have bright futures but Te’o was the good business Leinster did to bring a heavyweight presence to their midfield. With front-foot ball, you will see Reid and Ringrose bring their quality to bear. All the necessary attacking attributes are visible – a true second five eighth and centre.

But it all comes back to making the small inches first.

Our newest qualified Irishman, CJ Stander, delivered that for Munster. Without Pete O’Mahony and now that Paul O’Connell is gone, they were in desperate need of someone to lead by example and Stander did exactly that against Treviso. It wasn’t pretty but it got them the win they needed.

Nail down the basics

So, in many respects, this is a simple week for Leinster. Watch what all the best teams do. Nail down the basics. Fix the set-piece. They need leaders against Bath.

Johnny Sexton is the type of player who will look very briefly at Sunday’s game and be able to say, “Ok, that’s just not me.”

Everyone is entitled to a performance like that, especially after being so good for so long. The outhalf will always look ordinary on an off day when everyone is struggling around him.

And we know Johnny is no ordinary outhalf.

So it hasn’t started too well. The easy option is to pile into Leinster, scream about the demise of all things good about rugby in the province, but they have been in darker rooms and found their way out.

There is still an efficient business model being run behind the scenes. The recruitment was sound but simply hasn’t worked out as it has for Wasps. They are suffering from being Ireland’s chief supply line. Mounting injuries are always a concern and the World Cup hangover was in clear evidence. Now it’s about getting on with it.

Finding a way to win by any means possible. They are not going to lie down.