Scarlets will swing from the hip

RUGBY:IN STARK contrast to, for example, Brive – who sit at the bottom of the pool and travel to the Madejski Stadium after limply conceding a bonus-point win to London Irish at home last weekend – the Scarlets can be expected to swing from the hip against Leinster at the RDS on Saturday. If nothing else, well, they're not French.

They are also very much still in contention in Pool Six, after their opening two wins at home to Brive and away to London Irish, which means they are probably drinking at the last chance saloon at the RDS.

“It will be competitive,” forewarns Leinster consultant coach Alan Gaffney. “They haven’t had the most successful season yet if you take the Magners League into consideration.

“But they’ve beaten Irish away which is no mean feat, not many sides do that at the Madejski, so we’re going into this game knowing we’re in for a battle.

“Obviously we can’t worry about the result, we’ve just got to get the process right. If we play well the result will pop out the other end.”

Leinster added Rhys Ruddock, Ronnie McCormack, Devin Toner, Chris Keane and Simon Keogh to an enlarged squad yesterday, but having reported no physical ill-effects from last Saturday’s 32-7 win at Parc y Scarlets, they’ll most likely be unchanged.

Although reflecting the general sense of disappointment at failing to press home their 22-0 advantage, Gaffney has become increasingly influential with both Leinster and Ireland this season, and he was entitled to purr with some satisfaction at the team’s back play in Llanelli.

In particularly, the execution of the second try – with the backs running straight onto the ball and moving it through the hands with an almost French-like sway of the hips – was classic Gaffney-influenced.

That, he admitted, was the one he enjoyed the most. “I thought there was a lot of skill on the try where Jamie came off the back, D’Arcy’s try. The boys have been working very hard in training on doing drills along those lines, working in close quarters – three on two situations, four on three situations – and to see the result of that try after all the work they’ve been doing on the training paddock was very satisfying.”

While Leinster have learned how to graft out wins if the occasion demands, their ethos remains playing positive running rugby.

“We want to go out and play good attacking rugby again, there’s no doubt about that, not sort of defend anything we’ve got. We’ve got to out and be positive and play, that’s the best thing that Leinster can do.”

Gaffney praised the performance of Shaun Berne – “Shaunie is a very, very smart rugby player. That’s what he is” – and pinpointed Eoin Reddan’s sharpened service as equally instrumental in the win. Maintaining that, technically, Reddan had as good a pass as any scrumhalf in Ireland when he first went to Wasps, he has had to work on his service in readapting to playing with Leinster.

Coming after last season’s seven-try, 45-8 league win at home to the Scarlets last season, it was another one in the eye from Gaffney over John Muggleton, one-time Wallabies’ defensive coach and now with the Scarlets.

“Obviously some of the tries we scored at the weekend I don’t think too many sides would have held us out. Nothing was from set-piece; it was all from pace play. Muggo’s a good guy; a very good coach. He didn’t stay in the Australia job for the best part of a decade without being fairly handy at what he does. He’ll have some tricks up his sleeve I’m sure.”

Meanwhile, Munster hooker Jerry Flannery underwent an exploratory operation on his Achilles tendon yesterday. The full extent of his absence won’t be known until today, with a best-case scenario of four to six weeks, and a worst-case scenario of four to six months.

Tony McGahan is likely to draw from the same personnel for the return match against Perpignan on Sunday, though he has a number of selection issues to weigh up, such as whether to recall Jean de Villiers at the expense of Lifeimi Mafi or by reverting Keith Earls to the wing, with Doug Howlett and Paul Warwick also under pressure in a backline that is not firing. He may also consider promoting Damien Varley at hooker but otherwise the pack is likely to be unchanged.

Ulster could be in a position to welcome back two or all of last week’s injured trio, BJ Botha, Paddy Wallace and Timoci Nagusa, for Saturday’s return meeting with Stade Francais in Brussels. Their former winger Tommy Bowe has been cited for a dangerous tackle in the Ospreys’ win over Viadana.