Cheika's charges starting to run hot

Leinster 53 Bourgoin 7Sure Bourgoin raised the white flag a mite too easily, some of their tackling was vintage away-day French candyfloss, those who came along looking for a contest would have been disappointed. But Leinster could do little more and, dammit, they were good to watch.

In the corresponding fixture last season, a depleted Bourgoin turned up at Lansdowne Road in neither body nor spirit. This time most of the bodies made it but the spirit didn't last much longer, and perhaps the psychological wounds of last year's 92-17 thrashing resurfaced.

In truth, Saturday's scoreline mightn't have been a million miles from that given Leinster had another half-dozen or so chances, not least two first-half efforts by Eric Miller and Kieran Lewis that were wrongly disallowed. And the first encapsulated what this team is about.

When Guy Easterby tapped quickly inside his own half, everyone was alive to the possibilities. Everyone seems to want to get hands on the ball and make things happen. Jamie Heaslip was first to take the pass and make ground. His star status on underage teams has been largely down to match-winning ball-carrying, and a striking feature of his improvement under Michael Cheika is his improved distribution and awareness.

Here he looked and waited until making the offload, and Girvan Dempsey's remarkably deft transfer put Lewis away before Easterby was deemed to have knocked on before Eric Miller made the pick-up and touchdown.

Clearly encouraged to play what they see at a high tempo, when not looking to offload before or in the tackle, failing that Leinster hit the breakdown low and with ferocity to ensure quick ball. The orchestrator-in-chief is the little Puma genius Felipe Contepomi. Blessed with quick hands and an even quicker brain, he has a remarkable facility for locating the space and attacking it himself or putting people into the gaps.

All those around him revelled in it here, especially Shane Horgan and Gordon D'Arcy.

Horgan did see three skip passes go to ground, although the width he provided helped lead to the first try, and he ran with his old gusto.

So too did D'Arcy. This was close to vintage Mr Darcy, wriggling through non-existent gaps with that phenomenal strength and low centre of gravity.

And who says Dempsey can't hit the line? Continuing on his fine but largely undetected end-of-season form of last term, all of Dempsey's old confidence and pace have returned with a vengeance.

Robert Kearney, a 19-year-old in his rookie season, looks like a young fella who's just having a ball. His two individualistic tries on Saturday made light of the continuing absence of Denis Hickie - one can hardly give much more praise than that - and endeared himself to the 11,000 core Leinster fans.

Great to see, and it all rather gave the lie to the notion that Irish players are not inherently skilful enough to play this type of rugby.

Cheika reasoned simply.

"If you want to play against the best teams and be successful you've got to breed a philosophy that says: 'I want to put the opposition under pressure as much as possible', and the better you get at your game, at playing like that, the more difficult it is to defend.

"It's my ethos and I know it's a bit Utopian but if you don't have a go at it, and prepare yourself to do it, then you'll never know. You'll just run with everyone.

"I don't want to say I'm bringing some revolutionary game in here. I'm not some genius. It's just about playing good footie, and playing aggressively, and being consistently like that. Being fit enough, hard enough, strong enough, tough enough, mentally and physically to keep doing it.

"That's why I'm not over the moon. When I see it five or six times in a row then I will."

Although sterner tests undoubtedly await, the key to it all, aside from the quick ball at the breakdown, was the quality of the Leinster forward effort, especially at set-piece time.

Credit to Brian Blaney, for Leinster's lineout was unfailingly accurate, providing a consistent production line of quality ball save for two loose tapdowns in the third quarter, which led to Bourgoin's consolation try when Blaney himself, it has to be said, fell off a tackle on Benjamin Boyet.

Boyet, Bourgoin's playmaker-in-chief, sustained a heavy blow on the head when attempting (and failing) to stop Dempsey late on, but it looks like he will be fit for the return, although Julien Bonnaire, their test flanker and primary lineout option, has been ruled out for a further three weeks with a thrice-fractured finger.

"On a morflé!" declared Christophe Unios, the Bourgoin coach, in a popular French phrase that very loosely translated means they were gutted.

"Why? Because they (Leinster) were better on the impact, and physically and tactically. We had a good start but after the first try everything got bad for us. When it's not working well everyone wants to play to his own music.

"For us it's a game we have to cleanse from our insides. Perhaps this game can serve us for the future. We have to react very quickly and if it's possible, next week. But I have to talk to them, because they are hurting."

Boyet and co showed enough of their own tricks to show they can hurt Leinster but the destiny of this rematch lies even more in the hands of Leinster. If their setpiece and breakdown play is as proficient, then the tempo of their game will be too hot for Bourgoin to handle.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 5 mins: Kearney try, Contepomi con 7-0; 12: Contepomi pen 10-0; 29: Contepomi try and con 17-0; 34: Contepomi pen 20-0; 40(+7): Gleeson try, Contepomi con 27-0 (half-time 27-0); 42: D'Arcy try 32-0; 51: Giorghadze try, Peclier con 32-7; 64: Heaslip try, Contepomi con 39-7; 72: Kearney try, Contepomi con 46-7, 78: Jowitt try, Contepomi con 53-7.

LEINSTER: G Dempsey; K Lewis, G D'Arcy, S Horgan, R Kearney; F Contepomi (capt), G Easterby; R Corrigan, B Blaney, W Green; M O'Kelly, B Williams; E Miller, K Gleeson, J Heaslip. Replacements: B O'Riordan for Easterby (36-40) and (70 mins), E Byrne for Corrigan (60 mins), C Jowitt for Miller (62 mins), B Gissing for O'Kelly (65 mins), E Hickey for D'Arcy (72 mins), D Blaney for B Blaney, J Hepworth for Kearney (both 73 mins).

BOURGOIN: A Peclier; A Forest, I Giorgadze, G Davis, J-F Coux, B Boyet, M Forst (capt); O Milloud, B Cabello, R Peyron; J Pierre, C Del-Favqa; J Frier, L Baluc-Rittener, A Petrilli. Replacements: J Frier for Baluc-Rittener (half-time), D Venditti for Giorgadze (52 mins), P Cardinali for Peyron, D Khinchagishvili for Milloud, N Carmona for Peclier (all 70 mins), M Campeggia for Boyet (87 mins). Not used: F Montagnat. Sinbinned: Pierre (23 mins).

Referee: R Dickson (Scotland).