When there are internationals around the corner and your big names go missing, you have to look elsewhere to keep your Magners League points total ticking over, and Colin Heyburn’s photo above captures everything Leinster need to turn to for success in that time.
Carrying the ball we see our super skipper, providing experience. Representing the stars of the future, there's Andrew Conway giving him support. In the background, Isa Nacewa, our versatile overseas stalwart, always a vital component for us in November. Finally, the photo was taken at D4tress, and all those factors combined to give us the edge on Saturday night and complete a perfect October.
(We’ll just gloss over the fact that Leo lost possession with his offload moments after the snap was taken, ok?)
Once again there seems to be confusion over the awarding of man of the match. The stadium announcer said it was Richardt Strauss, but although he did have some impressive crash breaks, his darts were suspect and his missed tackle on Ross Ford led to the 2nd Embra try. More obvious choices would have been Hines for his strong presence around the fringes, and Conway for actually crossing the line with his impressive pace.
We didn’t make things easy for ourselves, and it was fortunate that the visitors appeared to have caught our possession-wasting bug particularly in the first half. Our inexperienced backline leaving a gaping hole for Patterson to score under the posts when we had a man advantage didn’t help much either.
But in the final 20 minutes that followed that score, we were able to get back on track defensively (we were better off without the ball than with it in that time!) and though the 16.5k+ Halloween crowd may have breathed a huge sigh of relief as fulltime was called, we just about deserved the spoils.
Not much more to be said about this really – the lads now have a hard-earned break until the 19th when the Dragons come to town. Being within touching distance of the playoff zone must surely satisfy Joe Schmidt considering how things looked the last time we faced the same opposition.
