Cardiff Blues-22 Leinster-34

IN A DIFFERENT LEAGUE

Not a bad senior debut for Jack Conan…Thursday night blowouts before a big Six Nations weekend can often be forgettable but this is one we’ll look back to, especially if he ever goes on to play for the Barbarians and gives headline-writers the easiest pun imaginable.

But while I don’t dispute he did well to show composure for his try after just 3 minutes, nor can I deny the fact that he had some good carries throughout the match, I don’t go along with Jonathan Davies’ choice of him as man of the match.  More on that later.

Oftentimes we have seen Leinster fall behind early in matches before we have had a chance for some decent attacking ball ourselves, so I seldom worry until I see just how we stack up against the opposition D.  Obviously that philosophy works both ways, and we saw a classic case of it in this match.

For the entire first 20 minutes, even with about 20 different company logos on their kit Cardiff couldn’t buy their way out of their own half.  Kicks were being charged down, they were getting munched in the scrum, if anything it was a wonder we only got the fourteen points in that period - Strauss added a second try over in the corner making full use of an overlap.

Still…even though I have been known to berate this region from the Welsh capital when they have been over-run by Leinster in the past, that was mostly to do with the sheer indifference shown by their players, centrally-contracted Lions captains included.  That certainly couldn’t be said for the 23 they put out on Thursday.

Even with the kick to the gut provided by the 14-point start by the league champions, they still backed themselves when they finally got some decent territory and were rewarded when impressive outhalf Gareth Davies went over.  You had to expect the home side was going to gain some advantage from familiarity with the “plastic” surface and this was borne out when Leinster skipper for the night Kevin McLaughlin lost his footing allowing the gap down the middle.

A Gopperth pen widened the margin again but the Blues kept going at us and a great run from one 22 to the other by superb fullback Dan Fish put them on the front foot again towards the end of the first half leading to Tom Denton playing the ball on the deck and seeing yellow.  A kick to touch followed by a lineout/maul option led to a try from hooker Kristian Dacey and suddenly the Blues were back in it. 

The fightback could even have been complete if Robin Copeland hadn’t positively butchered an overlap at one point…Munster supporters will no doubt be hoping he does better than that next season.

Still though, they came out all guns blazing in the second half, clearly determined to make the most of the remaining time with the extra man and although some wayward passing in our 22 denied them a third try at that point, they still managed to narrow the gap to just 2 points just as Denton returned to the field.

If this was a match where Leinster starting XV was the best available, Cardiff could well have gone on to win it from that point, even after a lucky bounce off the crossbar fell over for Gopperth to restore the 5-point lead for the visitors on 45m. 

But even in a Six Nations week where Matt O’Connor was missing more key players than any other province, he was still able to call on players of the calibre of Ian Madigan, Mike McCarthy, and my personal choice for man of the match, Rhys Ruddock.

He came on for McLaughlin (broken nose) at the start of the second half and you could tell by his attitude that he wasn’t going to mope around about being left out of the test setup.  And after we recovered the ball despite losing our own lineout and got into the Cardiff 22, it was Ruddock’s leg pumping which got us all the way to the tryline before Michael Bent somehow managed to avoid Denton to crash over and at that point the game was effectively over, at least with regard to the victors.

There were still bonus points to go after however, and it didn’t take Leinster long to get theirs.  More key involvement from Ruddock got us to the line and Eoin Reddan made his dummy look all too easy to go under the posts, goodnight Cardiff.  It was almost goodnight for the Blues prop Scott Andrews as frustration got the better of him and he threw a handbag at Jack O’Connor (who to he credit didn’t flinch).

And here is where I get my heading “in a different league”.  In a Heineken Cup pool with just four teams, you normally want to do all you can to avoid your opponent getting the losing bonus point.  But this year’s Rabo has effectively split in two with the top five scrapping for the four playoff spots while the rest, all going well with the blazers, are left to scrap for 6th spot which would get them into the Rugby Heineken Champions BT/Sky Cup.

So even though there were a full 25 minutes left on the clock and Leinster had 5 points in the bag with a 34-15 lead, Cardiff knew that with a couple more tries they would earn themselves not one, but TWO points on the table which could become vital at season’s end, with those points meaning absolutely nothing to Leinster.  And I have to say, in many ways Cardiff deserved it, though they fell short.

They did manage one try after a worrying break from the line by Brendan Macken allowed space for Fish to charge through and get a deserved score, with some pretty weak attempts at tackles put in by Noel Reid and Zane Kirchner in the process.  But despite having 20 whole minutes to work another score to get those 2 bonus points, they didn’t have the strength on the bench we did and the match fizzled out.

It really does appear to be curmudgeonry of the highest order to have concerns about a team that has gained a maximum of 15 league points in 3 matches played in just 11 days.  But I do.

The teams around us are also winning and despite our progress, defeat to the Warriors at the RDS on Saturday would severely hamper us, and no offence meant to Zebre, Newport or Cardiff but the Scots really do offer a much stiffer challenge.

And my concerns stem from two key pairings on the pitch - lock and centre.

Tom Denton and Quinn Roux could probably do well in Leinster blue if partnered by a Toner or Cullen, but when put together our team is severely weakened and I really don’t think they should feature alongside one another for the remainder of the season.  What’s more, there are options beyond them in the pecking order like Ben Marshall who could use the game time.

In the centre, the Reid/Macken axis have much to offer when we have the ball, although I really thought we’d see more from them on this pitch as both are adept with the sidestep.  But defensively, they provide nowhere near the standard expected as the Fish try showed (you could almost say they were caught hook, line and sinker).

Options for Glasgow?  How about McFadden at 12 and Luke at 13?  I know both are vying for the wing internationally but I really think it’s an opportunity to do both their long-term prospects some good next weekend.

Anyway…we can look at that more closely towards the end of the week.  Despite my bit of complaining, looking back over this win cheered me up a bit from Twickenham and also gave me a bit of hope about what’s going on at the Welsh regions…there’s plenty of talent below test level to keep them competitive in this league and hopefully both WRU & the fans can get behind them more financially in future.  JLP

Click here for post-match reactions on the HarpinOnRugby Facebook page

Also this weekend

Scarlets 25 - 21 Edinburgh

Benetton Treviso 12 - 14 Ulster

Dragons 24 - 23 Glasgow

Ospreys 11 - 25 Munster

Zebre 19 - 27 Connacht

	TEAM	PLD	PTS	W	PD	T	PF	TD
1	MUNSTER	15	57	13	164	39	384	24
2	LEINSTER	15	55	11	115	36	359	13
3	ULSTER	14	45	10	79	25	268	10
4	OSPREYS	15	45	9	128	40	386	20
5	GLASGOW	13	41	10	35	21	227	9
6	SCARLETS	14	32	6	-15	25	265	-2
7	NG DRAGONS	14	28	6	-12	20	252	-1
8	EDINBURGH	13	24	5	-61	21	230	-10
9	CARDIFF BLUES	15	23	4	-94	20	295	-17
10	CONNACHT	15	22	4	-97	19	209	-9
11	TREVISO	14	20	3	-97	19	250	-23
12	ZEBRE	15	14	2	-145	23	231	-14

red numbers indicate positions of HCup qualifiers under proposed new format

Next fixtures

Friday Feb 28

Ulster v NG Dragions, 7:05pm

Edinburgh v Ospreys. 7:35pm

Saturday Mar 1

Zebre v Cardiff Blues, 4pm

Connacht v Treviso, 5pm

Scarlets v Munster, 6:30pm

Leinster v Glasgow, 8:30pm

Leinster-34 Cardiff-20

CARBON COPY

“I’d like to think the … RDS crowd helped us pressure the Cardiff line in the final quarter and keep the ball when it counted to … finally clinch the 5 … points thanks to Madigan selling the Blues defence a wonderful dummy and surging through the space before him.”

A phrase or two was removed perhaps, but no words were changed in the above passage from my writeup of Leinster’s win over the Blues in September 2010, and it could easily apply to Friday night in the RDS. In fact, if Leigh Halfpenny had been successful with one of the placekicks he missed, even the final score would be exactly the same.

It all stands as a compliment to Matt O'Connor that this Leinster performance bore all the hallmarks of what the RDS fans have gotten used to during the Schmidt era.

That doesn't mean we were perfect by a long chalk, and anyone who reads this blog knows I'm happy to point out when Leinster are below their best, but given how our results went from win to draw to loss over the opening three weeks of this young season, we have to be happy overall with five league points in the bag, given there are trips to Thomond Park and Liberty Stadium around the corner.

Look back over our victories for the past few seasons and you'll lose count of the amount of times we conceded the first score. So when we not only went 3-0 down but also took over 11 minutes to have an attacking phase in the opponents’ half, the home crowd could be forgiven for not being, er, phased. No matter how many points the other guys put on the board, you won't be able to tell what kind of Leinster team is on the park until we have had our first decent spell with the ball, and on Friday once we had it, we scored an outstanding try.

One distinguishing feature of this match was that for the most part the returning Lions really seemed to be up for showing why they were chosen to go on that tour, and noone fit that bill more than Brian O'Driscoll. When you think about it, having been so vocal about his third test disappointment, he pretty much had to come out and show us what he could do, and his offload for Sean Cronin's try was the first of several stand-out contributions – if he continues this form this final year could well be his best ever.

The ball was actually slowed down coming out of the ruck under the Cardiff posts and it looked like the overlap was gone as the defenders got over to cover, but once Ian Madigan let fly one of his torpedoes and BOD threw a few shapes they parted like the Blue Sea for Cronin to high-hurdle a tackler and stroll over the line.

So we knew the tries were there for us, but we were only seven points up at the interval. Thankfully we were able to regain control from the restart and once we were camped on their line with a second try imminent, a dive over the top of the ruck by Filo Paulo earned him a yellow and in the resulting scrums referee Marius Mitrea awarded a penalty try.

According to the “totally unbiased” ScrumV commentary team, both the yellow and the pen try were harsh. I'll admit he could have given a warning instead of the binning, but when you go off your feet so close to your line you run the risk and it has certainly been given against us before. Same goes for the pen try...some refs could have given the weakened scrum a second chance but then again the spirit of the new laws is to avoid resets. Either way, Leinster had well regained control of the possession and territory stats (80% poss for Cardiff after 10m was just 33% at fulltime) at that stage and were deserving of the 14-point cushion.

Then we had another Lion showing us why he was selected. It all happened in a split second. The ball arrived in the hands of Alex Cuthbert, and he looked Rob Kearney in the eye. Both knew there was space outside. It was like the wild west with two gunslingers waiting to draw. The Welshman was just that fraction of a second quicker to pull the trigger and he still had a ton of work to do once past the world-class full-back including avoiding the touchline and cutting a swathe through the scrambling defenders who fell into each other trying to catch up to him. A superb score that spoke more for Cuthbert's brilliance than it did for a suspect defence, though many online went to great lengths to spin it the other way!

Before long we were back over the Blues line again ourselves, only this time McFadden just failed to get the touchdown. Nothing controversial about that decision, but there certainly was moments later when Cuthbert was involved once more.

Cardiff had forced a turnover in midfield and via the ref’s mike you can hear Isaac Boss screaming at O'Driscoll to come away from the breakdown area and cover as there was an overlap. BOD didn't get the message and after a tidy offload from Owen Williams and slick pickup by Todd from Breaking Bad Rhys Patchell, Cuthbert was through again and when he was tackled by both Dave Kearney and Sean Cronin, the ball went forward to be picked up by Harry Robinson who was left with an easy run-in.

However Mitrea called it back for a knock-on in the tackle. On the one hand, the Scrum V team were bemoaning that he didn't at least go to the TMO, while on the other they were saying categorically that it was Cronin who had knocked it out of Cuthbert's grasp. For the rest of the match they basically said it was a legitimate try that wasn't given.

Not sure you can have it both ways really, but perhaps the ref could have gone upstairs to see some more angles...one thing is for sure, there was absolutely nothing conclusive from the one angle we did get and if the officials were confident enough to make the call straight away, we have to assume they saw what happened.

Still, it was a lucky escape for Leinster and they needed a trademark lineout/maul try from Dominic Ryan plus that carbon copy score from three years before by Madigan to not only seal the victory but also the bonus point.

Here I have to credit the Cardiff Blues. I'm not so sure they were the victims of injustice as suggested by BBC Wales, but unlike their previous three visits to Dublin that I was harping on all through the week, they certainly appeared willing to engage us from the kickoff.

Sam Warburton was at his full test level of demonic possession at the breakdown although there were turnovers in contact for both sides throughout as our back row of Ruddock, Ryan and Heaslip held their own. A sloppy pass from Jack McGrath straight to Cory Allen allowed him an all-too-easy late consolation and fair play to the visitors for pushing for the losing bonus right to the end.

Overall a satisfying five points for Leinster, and BOD wasn't the only highlight. That fizzed pass from Madigan is going to be the feature of many a highlight reel this season, and however well Jimmy Gopperth played in the opening weeks, it was made pretty clear what our outhalf pecking order should be.

It wasn't the best night for the Kearney brothers but both made up for forgettable moments with decent contributions. Fergus McFadden had a decent shift but I wonder was he trying too hard to stand out on the wing.

In the forwards, although Devin Toner was pinged a couple of times for silly breakdown pens (he knows everyone can see him right?) I'm delighted to see him getting stuck in and he did force a turnover or two himself in the process and formed a decent lock partnership with young Quinn Roux.

All told, it's the end of September and Leinster find themselves in the playoff places. Matt has to be happy with that position in the Pro12, especially given the tough schedule we had to open the season. Of our remaining 18 matches, 13 are against teams who finished 6th-12^th on the table last season so there will be plenty of opportunity to move up.

In the meantime, however, we must gear up for the big one. And yes, the Heineken Cup is still the big one, whatever those loudmouth English club chairmen may have us believe. Normally the first weekend in October sees Munster at the Aviva but it's to Limerick we must go.

For me, we need to focus on four things during the week – defence, defence, scrums and defence. I reckon it was improved on Friday and the two Cardiff scores were opportunistic rather than sloppy on our part but still there is always stuff to work on.

As for the scrums, we can't continue ignoring the new laws and Cronin in particular will have to start actually hooking the ball whether there's an 8-man shove coming at him or not. However, if the ref is going to keep an eye on the straight-ness of the feed, it wouldn't hurt to watch for early defensive shoves either.

Anyway...I'll definitely take a carbon copy of last season's result in Thomond, that's for sure. Without the controversy, of course, ahem. JLP

 

Also this weekend

Zebre 17 - 24 Glasgow

Ulster 32 - 13 Benetton Treviso

Edinburgh 9 - 22 Scarlets

Connacht 26 - 43 Ospreys

Munster 23 - 9 Dragons

	TEAM	PLD	PTS	W	PD	T	PF	TD
1	GLASGOW	4	16	4	21	7	71	5
2	OSPREYS	4	16	3	56	16	140	9
3	MUNSTER	4	14	3	37	14	119	4
4	LEINSTER	4	13	2	31	12	111	5
5	ULSTER	4	11	2	22	8	70	5
6	SCARLETS	4	9	2	-1	7	83	-1
7	NG DRAGONS	4	9	2	-3	3	60	-2
8	CARDIFF BLUES	4	6	1	-15	3	81	-6
9	TREVISO	4	5	1	-30	5	71	-7
10	CONNACHT	4	4	1	-30	7	68	-2
11	ZEBRE	4	4	1	-33	8	84	-3
12	EDINBURGH	4	4	1	-55	4	58	-11

Next matches - Round 5

Fri 4 Ospreys v Ulster, Liberty Stadium, Swansea, 19:05

Fri 4 Dragons v Zebre, Rodney Parade, Newport, 19:15

Fri 4 Benetton Treviso v Connacht, Stadio Comunale di Monigo, Treviso, 19:30

Sat 5 Scarlets v Glasgow, Parc Y Scarlets, Llanelli, 18:30

Sat 5 Munster v Leinster, Thomond Park, Limerick, 18:45

Sun 6 Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh, Cardiff Arms Park, 13:05

Cardiff Blues-11 Leinster-26

BLIND SIDE

I guess this blog would get pretty boring if I banged on about the lack of television coverage every time I had nothing to judge a Leinster performance by.  But what else can I do?

By all accounts it seems Leinster were fully in control of this match, and even had a 23-3 halftime lead just like the national team had next door the previous Saturday.

The tries in our case however came right at the end of the opening period with first Isaac Boss and then Jordi Murphy getting the touch-downs.  We even had a Welsh comeback of sorts in the second half, though this time they only managed to get within 12 points…still, that’s less than two scores so when Ian Madigan was lining up his penalty kick with 10 minutes to go, the pressure would have been on as it was a match-winner, and he nailed it.

That’s about as much as I can say regarding the action…for more details you can read the official account on the Leinster rugby website.

And before I rant…we can just take it as a given that my point about the craziness of having Pro12 matches the same weekend as Six Nations ones has been done to death by me online.

When it comes to telly, simple question…should I expect all Leinster matches to be shown live on television?

Simple answer…yes.  And not because I think it’s “all about me”, either.  It just seems to be common sense.

First of all, yes, I know all about the argument that Connacht fans have.  When I rant about missing one Leinster game no doubt they would ask me to cry them a river.  My only response would be that if they expect one-for-one treatment by the media regardless of fan base size then they are free to write about it on their own blogs! 

My argument is based mostly on a marketing perspective.  The reason this match wasn’t shown was that apparently BBC Wales decided at the last minute that they couldn’t be arsed covering this match because with the Six Nations and all this weekend it meant they had priorities elsewhere.

So my obvious question is…why were they allowed to take this decision so late? 

This competition went for many years as just “The Celtic League” and needed to work hard to go find a sponsor before Magners came along.  Even then it was brand that went by a different name in Ireland, so clearly it wasn’t a case of sponsors banging down the league’s door.  Then the cider manufacturers pulled out, and the league was re-branded as the “Pro12” to allow for the Italian teams and eventually RaboDirect tacked on its unwieldy name to make it the brand we know it today.

Now I’m not a morkeshing person by any stretch, but I would have thought that if I was shelling out dosh to sponsor an competition, I’d want every opportunity taken for the general public to get at least get a squizz at my logo?

Which means that when a match is being played between teams representing the most heavily populated markets in two of the four countries in the league, I’d be rightly pissed off to learn it wasn’t going to be broadcast!

So my query goes back to the signing of the original contract with the broadcasters.  Basically if you’re a TV company and you want to secure rights to cover the league then off you go.  But surely it makes sense to establish a deadline date before a particular fixture when you must guarantee that you’re going to show a match, one that allows an alternative network enough time to step in if you couldn’t be bothered?

I mean…if THESE matches can be shown on Irish telly this weekend… Dewsbury v Featherstone (English second tier rugby league), Ebbsfleet v Macclesfield (English FIFTH tier football – and this was a re-run so Setanta certainly had a free slot on Friday evening) & Cork v Kildare (GAA – I know these teams are Irish but at least this was played on Irish soil and attendances are extremely poor at the league matches; before anyone gets hot under the collar if it were a Championship fixture it wouldn’t be on this list) then I don’t see why the people involved can’t get together and ensure a team with one of the biggest fan bases on the island can’t get match coverage.

Not that I minded watching the Wolfpuppies of course, but BBC Northern Ireland didn’t have much problem showing Ulster v Ospreys at the same time and no doubt their ratings were more than decent.  If this Cardiff v Leinster match had been on I would probably have watched it live while recording the Under 20s.

And if it absolutely positively can’t be on the box, then it certainly wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort to get it onto the wireless. But again, I have banged that drum before.

But looking ahead on the Pro12 schedule it seems this won’t be the last Leinster contest to be blacked out this season.  Like next weekend when Ulster, Connacht AND Munster all get screened live.  Though this time I get the last laugh, as barring an emergency I’ll be at the RDS to watch us try and close the gap on the Ulstermen even further when we take on Treviso.

Instead get to wait another few weeks before you read another post like this one…there doesn’t seem to be any plans to show Leinster’s visit to Rodney Parade on Friday March 1st.  But not to worry…at least we’ll get to see Wolves host Watford that night.

Finally I’d like to thank @leinsterrugby, @inshin and @barmchugh for keeping us up to date with the events at Cardiff Arms Park on Friday night via twitter, as well as to @FaveColourPink for the photo. JLP

UPDATE – Glasgow’s bonus-point win at Zebre on Sunday means that Round 14 saw not only the Pro12 leaders Ulster lose, but also everyone from positions 2nd to 6th all won, which makes for a fascinating battle for the final eight rounds to see who finishes in the top four.  Munster’s trip to Llanelli is the pick of the ties in Round 15.

Also this weekend…

Ulster 12 - 16 Ospreys

Dragons 23 - 14 Benetton Treviso

Scarlets 25 - 15 Connacht

Munster 30 - 3 Edinburgh

Zebre 20 - 36 Glasgow

Leinster-34 Cardiff Blues-23

THE SCHMIDT FACTOR?

Last season you would’ve bet your house on a Leinster team with a 14-0 lead at any stage of the match.

Only thing is, I’m not sure we ever had such a lead last year, since to do so we’d have to score a try.

When Ian Madigan crossed for our bonus-securing try at the death, it was our 6th touchdown of the season in only our second game. A year ago it took us till the 38th minute of our 6th game up in Ravenhill for Shaun Berne to cross for number 6.

So that begs the question : has Joe Schmidt brought the tries with him from Clermont? On yesterday’s evidence at our home opener, it really looked like it, especially after Nacewa crossed for our second on eight minutes to add to Jennings’ opener.

But of course such an addition to our repertoire can’t come without it’s drawbacks. For the second week in a row we threw away that early lead, and also for the second week in a row, the lead was lost mostly due to mistakes on our part.

This week’s Leinster brainfart wasn’t quite as costly as Fogarty’s, when Shaggy looked bemused and stood his ground despite the ref telling him to move in the ruck. Still, you can’t give soft chances like that to Dan Parks and it settled the visitors by getting their side of the scoreboard moving.

But we went in at the break with the fourteen-point advantage restored, and my only concern was our ability to retain possession when we had it. Guess what – before I could say I told you so in the second half, we’d coughed up the ball twice the in the opposition 22 for the Blues (who were masquerading as the Pinks) to counter attack both times for scores. Another Parks pen followed and the home crowd was shell shocked into thinking it was going to be a long, long campaign.

All we needed to do was hold on to the frickin ball! I’ve never seen the one team lose it in contact so often! Clearly that’s a by-product of the Schmidt-inspired brand of offloading which, while devastating when it works, needs a few more matches before it’s perfected throughout the squad.

Despite our handling errors, we deserved to win this game, as we dominated at virtually every position.

What can you say about Isa Nacewa. Well on this showing, I say “Superman”. Catching, kicking, running, tackling, he delivered at least one highlight-reel moment in every department, and well deserved man of the match.

He was ably supported by a Luke Fitzgerald with mojo restored, a display from Ian Madigan beyond his years given the situation Jonny10’s injury foisted upon him, and in the forwards, a second strong outing in a row from Richardt Strauss at hooker which for me puts him ahead of Fogs in our pecking order.

And even though I was part of it, I’d like to think the almost 16,000-strong RDS crowd helped us pressure the Cardiff line in the final quarter and keep the ball when it counted to first nudge ahead thanks to Fads  after a super crash ball/offload by Healy, and finally clinch the 5 Magners League points thanks to Madigan selling the Blues defence a wonderful dummy and surging through the space before him.

That final 15 minute spell gave the Leinster faithful the sense they were looking for – that they still have the stuff necessary to produce the goods, though this time, goods of the try-scoring variety. Long may it continue – I’d take a 34-23 bonus-point win over an 18-12 kickfest any week.

Leinster-21 Cardiff-20

A WIN IS A WIN IS A WIN

I wouldn’t blame you for expecting me to moan and groan about this performance, but for once, I’m going to look at the bright side.

For one thing, their try should never have been allowed, or at LEAST been reviewed by the TMO. If what the Cardiff guy did was legal, then they may as well call the sport American football and allow blocking, helmets and excessive shoulderpads.

So by rights, the score should have been 21-15. And also, kudos to Felipe for making the RDS announcer play that annoying horn noise as many as seven times. They were mostly relatively comfortable kicks, but they all had to be made and the Argentinian was up to the task.

Honourable mentions should also go to Messrs Elsom and Kearney on the night.

Sure, there was a lot to the display to be concerned about, not least the fact that yet again we were unable to put together a series of phases without cocking up at the vital moment.

Besides, they say the best teams find a way to win even when they’re not playing well, and you can be sure that’s been the case in all three of our wins in 2009.

Yet win we did and we’re well poised in the Meaningless League so here’s hoping our Heineken Cup campaign is still alive and kicking come full time at Twickers next Saturday.