MAGNERS LEAGUE Leinster 36 Glasgow 13: FIVE TRIES. On the face of it excellent. But this was a match coach Michael Cheika can pick over and take from it what he likes. Some good points, some bad points, and for the good of team psychology he will surely emphasise the good tails-up finish.
The score-line reflected a team firmly in charge and that wasn’t far from the truth but four of Leinster’s tries were scored in the final quarter, all of them by players coming off the bench.
The excellent, low-slug flanker Seán O’Brien brought his powerful bustling game into the match and grabbed two of the late scores with outhalf Johnny Sexton and Shane Horgan bagging one each, all after the clock had struck 58 minutes.
“He is putting pressure on. Jenno (Shane Jennings) knows that. He will have his role to play no matter where it is in the game,” said Cheika of O’Brien after the match.
What that suggests is the Leinster team is still open to change and maybe that’s not such a good thing seven days out from their biggest match of the year, against Munster in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup.
Cheika may have arrived at the RDS looking for something steady and faithful to what he knows his Leinster players can do on the practice ground but he left with a number of areas badly needing to be patched up, notably the lineout, protecting the ball at rucks and consistent place-kicking.
The intricate back-line moves that misfired are risk reward always but three or four times the back line fluffed the timing and execution and once the interchange between Brian O’Driscoll and Felipe Contepomi resulted in Lome Fa’atau racing off for a Glasgow try on 38 minutes.
Again the optics were not good.
Overall a poor Glasgow team were the side on show but Munster were the team in everyone’s mind and while Cheika denied that games against Glasgow can be truly measured against future games against Munster, because they will set out their stall differently, this fractured Leinster bonus-point performance was far from the control and consistency needed to worry the European champions.
“In reality you can never look at one performance,” said Cheika. No two games are the same. The plan is to tailor performance. There are certain parts of the game we absolutely need to be spot-on. We’ve done some good things in those areas in the past. Tonight we weren’t good at those things.
“We’ve got to make sure, like kick-off, lineout and maybe the ruck in the first half . . . we know what to do. We have to bring that game.
“Obviously we are not expected to beat Munster. They’re very strong favourites because they’ve been pretty much untouchable this year.”
Leinster were forced to withstand only one real phase of Glasgow pressure, which they did without concession after captain Leo Cullen was introduced from the bench before half-time for his aggression at the breakdown. Cheika needed his team his to be lower, tighter and better at the ruck. Cullen delivered there.
Contepomi’s kicking was, at one point, just one from four as Leinster trailed 8-13 into the second half, despite Glasgow being a man down, fullback Bernardo Stortoni binned for killing the ball.
The Argentinian, especially early on, seemed disjointed from team thinking and while obviously a dangerous and talented player, Sexton filled the outhalf position later on with less flair or invention but in a more traditional way.
Jamie Heaslip, who was also binned with Glasgow number eight Kelly Brown, was aggressive and effective enough to be rewarded man of the match while Rock Elsom gained yards with the ball all night. But anomalies were there.
Several times cleverly-angled runs, and one particularly from low-key Gordon D’Arcy, were not finished off with the normally high level of execution.
D’Arcy was clear into try-land at the end of the first half only to have the ball slapped from his grasp feet from the line. Horgan also lost it, when clearly through in the second half.
Cian Healy caught the eye with his powerful running and it was the young prop along with Heaslip whose first-half tackles were alone worth the entrance money.
A perfectly-timed Heaslip hit emptied Stortoni under a high ball and seconds later Healy did the same to an off side Mark McMillan reflecting an attitude that cannot be reduced to just cameo roles on Saturday.
Elsom punched through from a Leinster lineout after 15 minutes before Glasgow outhalf Ruaridh Jackson and Contepomi squandered several kicks between them. The bench then came to the Leinster rescue in the final quarter leaving a frustrated coach with possibly as many questions as answers for the biggest day of his Leinster coaching career.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 4 mins: F Contepomi pen 3-0; 6: R Jackson pen 3-3; 11: K Brown try 3-8; 15: R Elsom try 8-8; 38: L Fa;atau try 8-13. Half-time. 58: S Horgan try, F Contepomi con 15-13; 63: S O'Brien try, Contepomi con 22-13; 74: J Sexton try, Contepomi con 29-13; 79: S O'Brien try, Contepomi con 36-13.
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; I Nacewa, B O'Driscoll, G D'Arcy, L Fitzgerald; F Contepomi, C Whittaker; C Healy, B Jackman, S Wright, D Toner, M O'Kelly, R Elsom, S Jennings (c), J Heaslip. Replacements: Cullen for O'Kelly 36 mins; S Horgans for Nacewa 46 mins; S O'Brien for Jennings, R McCormack for Healy 60 mins; J Fogarty for Jackman, C Keane for Whittaker 74 mins.
GLASGOW WARRIORS: B Stortoni; Lome Fa'atau, M Evans, G Morrison, T Evans; R Jackson, M McMillan; K Tkachuk, D Hall, M Low, D Turner, A Kellock (capt), C Forrester, J Barclay, K Brown. Replacements: F Thomas for Hall 9 mins; J Va'a for Tkachuk 64 mins; H O'Hare for Fa'atau 70 mins.
Referee: J Jones(WRU).
