Heineken Cup Munster v Leinster:THERE WAS something self-contained about Michael Cheika when he walked in after Leinster's efficient despatching of the highest-ranked team in Europe and rolled back in his chair. Body language open and receptive. Calmly facing an audience that had been openly hostile to any notions of Leinster winning this semi-final, the Australian had the air of a man that had just survived the hurricane but knew that great dangers lay ahead.
This was a time to play up the quality of his team that so many had played down and play down any high octane thoughts of thinking the job is near complete, notions some were now trying to play up. Leinster have gotten to within one step of where they want to be. On that he was clear.
Paul O’Connell had come and gone, his face still burning with frustration and anger, to say that Leinster had beaten them in just about every facet. Cheika disagreed.
“Maybe not in the lineouts,” he smiled. “Every game has a dynamic all of its own. Our guys wanted to take the moment. I think its more about planning for making mistakes because in games like these, the quality of the opposition is so high they will force them on you and we knew we would make a few mistakes but just not to look back on them but to keep pushing forward with out strategy. We’re lucky enough now that we have the opportunity to move on.
“I think we stayed composed at a lot of the right times. We didn’t do very well in the lineout, really, but we were able to overcome that and get ball through other methods. We knew that. We knew we’d be coming under pressure in that area so . . . we’d some opportunities from other ball and I suppose, defensively, that was also a big part of trying to get some ball back as well, the defensive ruck. ”
The coach chose to sit far from the heat of the action. In the box he was insulated from the clamour and the in-your-face emotion of the fans. Even the most detached can get caught up in the fervour and the niggling nature of a Croke Park derby.
Cheika was no different. Yellow cards, blood injuries, match-ending falls, players cramping. It was a hectic match.
“You saw what a brilliant spectacle it was out there,” he said. “I sat in the box because I think that if I sat out in the crowd sometimes it can overwhelm you. That’s what it is between Leinster and Munster. It’s a bit of a war and sometimes you just need to be as aggressive as you can.
“Know what I mean? That’s important to us to engage with our crowd more and more. We want to make them proud, win loose or draw, and I know that’s a cliche. I think it’s more the effort the crowd acknowledge rather than the result.”
No, no, no. Not this time. The result was all, although, the manner in which Leinster’s aggression and strike running paid off will live with everyone for the next three weeks leading into the final. When was the last match the golden boys, Luke Fitzgerald, Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll scored a try each? The suggestion the win was a burden lifted from Leinster, almost got the coach animated. Burden, what burden?
“Listen there is no burden in this job,” said Cheika. “Nothing is a burden. You know you make decisions with the best intentions for your team. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. You accept the consequences of those but it’s definitely not a burden. Win or lose today it’s still a great team to be involved in no matters what the decisions.
“It’s definitely not a burden off my shoulders. We decided that we wanted to play in a Heineken Cup final. We stayed composed today and we want to make sure we stay composed for the next few weeks and try to have a better performance.”
Leinster came into the game with just themselves believing in the possibility of the final. Sometimes they beat a lonely path and in the week just gone, the underlying view is they were very much on their own. It was a lonely journey. But any team that turns over Munster deserves to feed off the accomplishment.
“I think for us it’s not an issue. Confidence for us it’s about continually having belief, belief that you can go the next step,” said Cheika. “We had a lot of negativity headed our way, so you have to believe in yourself and that sometimes is difficult. Yeah, we had a good game today. We’ve done well and we’ve qualified for the final but the final is the prize.
“You can talk about this game in the future sometime but once you have the trophy they can’t take that away from you. So we’ve just got to knuckle down over the next few weeks, understand where we are in the bigger pictures of things and just build towards that game because a lot of things can happen between now and then.”
Tomás O’Leary has shown just what things can happen and Felipe Contepomi too. The way everyone of the Leinster team embraced the Argentinean after the match was instructive as to what was in their minds about the severity of his knee injury.
But Cheika was thrilled by the way bench players came in, Shane Horgan, Girvan Dempsey. “He (Horgan) played well, made a lot of good influences and impacts on the game and we were lucky there. You lose players of the calibre of Rob Kearney and you’ve got players of that calibre. We lost Luke and we could bring Girvan on, so we are lucky.
“Players have bought into this idea that sometimes it doesn’t work for you in the starting 15, it’s the bench where you have to make in impact. Girv made a great try-saving tackle at the end. Over the next few weeks the jockeying will continue.”
