RUGBY NEWS:BEWARE OF French sides seemingly set on rolling over and having their bellies tickled. Castres' forwards' coach Jeremy Davidson has been jokingly sending texts to his old mucker Malcolm O'Kelly suggesting they would only be sending over their seconds to the RDS on Saturday, but whatever team they unveil, as Montauban showed against Munster, you get lulled into a false sense of security by French outfits at your peril.
Castres remained imperilled in the bottom two relegation places domestically after a 23-9 defeat at home to Bourgoin last Saturday on a bizarre day in the Top 14 given there was only one home winner. Plenty of referees must have left their car engines running. But yet again Castres were authors of their own downfall, and were winning 9-6 in the 54th minute when their All Blacks' prop, Carl Hoeft, was shown a red card for stamping on Bourgoin captain Julien Frier.
Michael Cheika went to watch them the previous weekend when losing in Paris to Stade Francais and maintains they have a stronger squad than the one which finished fifth last season. "With the quality of players they have they can put it together, and if you stay off them they can hurt you."
They may also welcome a change of scenery.
Encouragingly, Leinster's 15-a-side training session yesterday was very intense, but the Leinster coach also cited the repetitive nature of the All Blacks' recent Grand Slam tour, when only pulling away after half-time in all four games, as proof that "the days of breezing through games is over. No one does it any more.
"If you think about it, who powers past opposition in 40 minutes and it's all over? Defences are better, they're too good. Teams may be near the bottom of the table because they may have lost five games by two points.
"We know that those days are over because professionalism is getting higher, and one of the things that teams can improve most easily is defence, so if they can defend your games are going to be tighter. So discipline will be important, and managing expectations, so that we know as a team that it might take us 70 minutes. And no panic if it does."
In any event, on any given day Leinster have shown they can beat anyone, anywhere, but consistency has always been their main bugbear. Hence, prior to their second pool game at home to
Wasps, Cheika made much of Leinster's ability to only twice complete wins on successive weekends in nine previous attempts under him. Their ability to win back-to-back matches against the same opponents in the middle rounds is also decidedly mixed, achieving the feat five times out of 10, and three times out of six against French opposition.
"You've got to plan over a couple of weeks at this time of year. Back-to-back games are very important in terms of how you manage them. I suppose the last piece of the puzzle is the way in which French teams administer their home and away games as well."
Leinster beat Edinburgh at home last year before losing in Murrayfield a week later, and three years ago beat Bourgoin 53-7 at Lansdowne Road only to lose 30-28 the following weekend. Just as pertinently, they beat Bourgoin 92-17 at home the year before, 2004, and barely squeezed home 26-23 a week later. French sides may be the same in name from week to week, but very rarely in substance.
Reflecting on their double over Agen two seasons ago but also on what happened against Edinburgh last season, Cheika said: "I've learned - and I hope that I have learned well - so that we can be prepared over the coming two games."
Perhaps history shows that Leinster would have been better off playing Castres away first up, but as Cheika said: "We've just got to think about the home game first and build the intensity to the level that we want to perform to at home. We want to play a certain way in all of the games in Europe, so it just happens that we play the same team two weeks in a row. We've got to manage our squad right, manage our tactics and above all manage our intensity.
"You've got to approach each of the six games like it's a Test match, or a cup final. If you can do that for six games then you're going to be prepared. But it's hard to do."
As expected, Leinster welcome back their leading try-scorer Luke Fitzgerald (five tries in both competitions this season), Rob Kearney, Jamie Heaslip, CJ van der Linde and Shane Jennings, although Jennings did not train yesterday and remains at best a 50-50 chance. Against that leading scorer Felipe Contepomi (99 points in both competitions to date) and Isa Nacewa have not been included.
Cheika has used 31 players this season but in naming only a 24-man squad this far in advance of the tie (because he likens it to a Test match) Brian Blaney has been named ahead of John Fogarty and Simon Keogh looks assured of a place on the bench having made the cut ahead of Fergus McFadden and Gary Brown.
The team is liable to read: Dempsey; Horgan, O'Driscoll, Fitzgerald, Kearney; Sexton, Whitaker; Wright, Jackman, van der Linde, Toner, O'Kelly, Elsom, Jennings or O'Brien and Heaslip.
Therefore his toughest call looks like being who to put on the bench between Stephen Keogh or Cameron Jowitt, with the former, like his namesake, seemingly having moved up the pecking order on the basis of Leinster's quartet of recent A games.
LEINSTER SQUAD(v Castres Olympique) - Forwards (14): C Healy, B Blaney, B Jackman, CJ van der Linde, S Wright, T Hogan, D Toner, M O'Kelly, R Elsom, C Jowitt, S Jennings, S O'Brien, J Heaslip, S Keogh. Backs (10): C Keane, C Whitaker, D Holwell, J Sexton, S Keogh, L Fitzgerald, B O'Driscoll, S Horgan, G Dempsey, R Kearney.
