Our penultimate look at Leinster’s 2012/13 campaign features April, and undoubtedly the match that provided the most debate material of the season. As if a Munster v Leinster match needed an incident like this!
This latest instalment in the saga featuring one of professional rugby's biggest rivalries will live in the memory mostly because of the incident between Dave Kearney and Paul O'Connell. But for me it will also be worthy of note for the reactions of the two sets of fans afterwards, though I will get to that later.
And since the reporting of it in the Sunday papers was, shall we say, selective, I feel I have no choice but to give it prominence in my own weekly match writeup – though I reckon there's a decent case to be made for it defining the entire match, since in analysing what happened you can reference pretty much every significant event that went before it.
So let's take a step back and look at the incident shall we.
What exactly happened?
In the 62nd minute Isaac Boss executed an impressive box-kick from inside his own 22, and it was taken cleanly in the air by Dave Kearney. After the catch he struck Munster full-back Felix Jones…no foul, he just hit him on the way down but landed awkwardly. Despite being shaken when he hit the ground, he proceeded to present the ball for his team-mates. Paul O’Connell saw what he was about to do and went to disrupt the Leinster attack by fly-hacking the ball but instead met the back of Kearney’s head with his shin. He immediately apologised to the player, who as a precaution had to be stretchered off the field. Judging by a tweet he posted on Sunday evening, he seems to be ok.
What was POC's state of mind going into the incident?
Early in the second half, Leinster were attacking in the Munster 22 with the score at 16-12 to the home side. The game had reached that “next score is crucial” stage. Paul O'Connell threw himself on to Sean Cronin for a spot of jackling but was pinged by referee Nigel Owens for coming in from the side, which allowed Ian Madigan to reduce the deficit to one [side note – even as a Leinster fan it sickens me to see anyone pat an opponent’s back after conceding a penalty…a lesser man than POC would have had the wind knocked out of him by the thumps Leo Cullen was giving him].
A few minutes later the referee gave another penalty against him for being involved in a “truck-and-trailer” situation after a maul. Just before the DK incident, another pen was given to the visitors, this time for “driving in not square” at a scrum by Tommy O’Donnell. After each call team captain O’Connell was having extra words with the referee and was frequently shaking his head about the decisions against his team.
Well – did he have a point about the officials?
Depends on what his point was. If he was saying that they were getting some calls wrong then yes, he definitely had a point. But if, as I suspect, he suggests there was some kind of favouritism going on, well then I suggest he takes a look back over the match again, particularly three first half incidents –
(a) Rob Kearney’s non-try. An omni-shambles from the officiating team as a unit. First a Healy knock-on is missed then the referee goes to the TMO with the question “try or no try” even though he admits to Leo Cullen afterwards he thought it was a score. If that’s the case should he not have asked the other question? Even without that though, I reckon the TMO had evidence to award the grounding.
(b) Munster’s first try. Damien Varley was off his feet when he stripped the ball from Isa Nacewa. That’s not to say Leinster were angels at the breakdown all day either and the officials let a long, long list of things go throughout the match for both sides. But that’s my point. For both sides.
Put the three above incidents together and you get a series of 50/50 calls that represent a 15-17 point swing on the scoreboard in Munster’s favour, so was there bias against the home side? Absolutely not.
What is my own verdict?
I reckon I’m in a good position to give one, since despite being a Leinster fan through and through, less than 24 hours before this happened I was singing Paulie’s praises on msn.com; an article in which I had a choice of subject matter, I might add.
The party line from Munster fans seems to be that anyone who dares to mention the incident is suggesting O’Connell intended to kick Dave Kearney in the head. So let me put that one to bed. Of course he didn’t. And I dare say very few people think he did.
Now…to put the other extreme to bed…was it an “accident?” To me, that implies he didn’t know Kearney’s head was anywhere near the ball. Are we sure we want to go questioning O’Connell’s eyesight?
The reality is that the English language has a perfect word to describe what he did -
reck-less (adjective) : utterly unconcerned about the consequences of some action
My verdict is that Paul was fired up by the passion created by a massive derby match and in a fleeting moment made a horrendous decision, one that could very well have had much more serious consequences.
What should happen now?
An anecdote I always remember from Bernard Jackman's book “Blue Blood” is the one relating to an incident from Leinster's 30-0 win over Munster in the then-Magners League in October 2009.
Seemingly after referee Simon McDowell sent off John Hayes for a stamp on Cian Healy's head, Ronan O'Gara turned to the official and said something along the lines of : “You're sending him off? But it's John Hayes!”
Whether or not this actually happened, this is an attitude that is prevalent throughout sport and it never ceases to infuriate me.
When it comes to dangerous & foul play, particularly at the highest level of sport where events inspire everyone else in the game down through the ranks, we simply cannot factor a player’s “legend” status into our verdict. Nor can we take into account any matches that are to come in the player’s immediate future. I know there are numerous cases where it does happen, and it may very well here, but my point is that it is a terrible example to set and it is a practise that should have been confined to the sport’s history along with its amateur status.
Hopefully I have enough protection against accusations of hypocrisy as in the past I condemned both Heaslip’s knee to Richie McCaw’s head in 2010 and BOD’s more recent stamp on Favaro.
When you look at the IRB guidelines (click pic to the right to read) it’s pretty clear there is a case for the citing commissioner to at least have a look. Since a player’s head was involved, were there to be a ban it should be at least for two weeks, whether it deprives Munster of their talisman against Clérmont or not.
If you think this whole account is just my Leinster bias talking then so be it, but I feel I have made my case pretty clear. Now to the rest of the action!
***
Isaac Boss was fully deserving of his man-of-the-match award. Both defences, more often than not allowed to fully engage in the “dark arts”, were making yardage almost impossible to come by, yet with pesky runs around the fringes he led both teams with 53m gained.
Elsewhere on the Leinster side I thought we were too persistent with the same offensive strategy and it wasn’t until Isa’s grubber kick forward that we provided the right mix to get into their 22.
The 27 phases that followed shortly afterwards leading to the match-winning try, however, were stuff of epic proportions. I was fully expecting a knock-on or holding penalty to be the result but to a man they kept their resolve and despite being relatively quiet for the entire match O’Driscoll’s sheer determination is what this writeup should really be all about.
And it was yet another eye-catching shift from Ian Madigan…6 for 6 from the tee and some exquisite long passing…but I have a feeling it’s his tendency to avoid kicking from the hand that resulted in our rather one-dimensional approach going forward. Still, it gives him something to work on in the off season and hopefully he’ll have it right come September.
On the Munster side there were also some stand-out displays, most of all from Tommy O’Donnell. Always putting himself about at the breakdown, he forced many a turnover and led the match with a monstrous 19 tackles. Elsewhere I was impressed by Simon Zebo’s attitude (his porn star tache, not so much – Munster fans who slagged off Madigan’s hair before the match have some humble pie to scoff!) in that he wasn’t content to sit on the wing and wait for opportunities to come to him.
Finally with the clock ticking down Leinster had to summon all of their defensive mojo and managed it relatively comfortably as it turned out, with immense contributions from the entire back row. O’Driscoll took pleasure in putting the ball dead to finish the game and we emerged from Thomond victorious for the 4th time in our last 6 regular season visits.
And although I had intended to give some decent column inches to RTE’s glaringly red-tinted coverage, let me instead confine it to this…right after the full-time whistle Donal Lenihan said “there was nothing between the teams”. I beg to differ, Donal, there was six points :-)
How does this leave Leinster’s season? With a bit of help from the Ospreys and Connacht this Friday, we could have an amazing five matches in five successive weekends at the RDS to finish the campaign, with some silverware as the incentive to round off what has been an excellent reincarnation since Christmas.
As much as I’d like Joe Schmidt to have the Ireland job, hopefully he will be allowed to focus on the task at hand over the coming weeks without the IRFU & press giving him too many reasons to look the other way. JLP
Update : looks like the powers that be have chosen to look the other way and deem his actions “careless” rather than “reckless”…so be it! My view still stands, but onwards we go. Best of luck to Munster in Montpellier!
After viewing footage, @rabodirectpro12 confirm act was careless not intentional, not a red card offence #rterugby — Michael Corcoran (@MichaelC_RTE) April 15, 2013
Also this weekend…
Ospreys 28 - 3 Benetton Treviso
