Dempsey eager for rematch

GIRVAN DEMPSEY INTERVIEW:  PERHAPS ONE of the challenges Leinster face this week with Castres is they will be different animals to those of last week. From the players' viewpoint that seems basic, although, depending on the position, the views on how to achieve that vary.

Better, crisper passing say the backs; quicker and more efficient ruck ball say the forwards. It all seems so simple, although, it adds up to quite a bit of tweaking.

Leinster need not play a different game when they travel to France for their Heineken Cup return leg, however; they must play a better version of the game they played in the RDS last Saturday, which gave them a comfortable win on the pitch but less comfortable commentary when it was over.

Girvan Dempsey has heard and seen the whole gamut of opinion before. He is also the most experienced player along with Brian O'Driscoll and Malcolm O'Kelly and knows what it takes to command a win against a French team at home who are actually trying to win.

"As players we love it," he says of having a return game just days later. "You get a chance the following week to go out and play the same opposition and settle any personal scores.

"We relish the task but it's a tough ask because you get to know the opposition so well in the space of a few weeks. With the likes of a French side, it's always a tough ask to face them back to back."

Given that the side which Castres coach Jeremy Davidson put out in Dublin contained less than half of their first choice players, it's likely that most of the Leinster team will, this week, play against unfamiliar faces. It will be Castres but not be the same team.

"No, we feel they're going to make a number of changes," says Dempsey. "Possibly up to seven or eight changes. We feel some of the guys that came off the bench at the RDS will be starting on Friday night.

"A lot of their big abrasive ball-carriers will come into the side. They'll be looking to play a more confrontational game, giving their home crowd something to cheer at, try and show that they're a better side than their results have shown of late."

Dempsey, as befits his nature, does not seem overly perturbed about the task, nor casual about it. But his calm also comes from a belief that Leinster can sand off the edges and add a sharper veneer to the way they play.

The roll over Castres performed so well in Dublin will hardly be repeated for local consumption.

"Certainly not, no," says Dempsey. "If you look at any French side at home, they're a completely different animal. They play a completely different brand of rugby and they're always very passionate in front of their home fans.

"We're going out under no illusions. We know the first half was a tough encounter. They defended very well and made things very tough for us at ruck time. But we felt if we stuck to our game-plan and tried to keep the tempo up, the game would break up in the second half and the tries would come."

The tries came but not in such abundance for Leinster to be entirely satisfied with the afternoon's work. That they left all of the try scoring to the second half mitigated against earning the bonus point.

Still, the four-try bonus was alive in the final 40 minutes and despite winning it was poorly marked by its critics.

"There was a certain element of it (criticism) being misplaced, all right," says Dempsey.

"The players have looked at the video and we feel we did leave some scores behind us all right. Some of our execution - our passing - was very poor and well below our standard.

"Sometimes we made the line break but our support wasn't quick enough to the ball-carrier to finish things off.

"Those two are the key things, and to keep getting quick ruck ball, and to keep things on the move going forward all the time. That's one thing we're trying to achieve. We're trying to play with quick ruck ball."

The patching up of last week's flaws seems reasoned and logical. More importantly, this week's match in a French "hotbed" will be seen as a test of Leinster's evolving temperament and mentality.

"We know what it's going to be like," says the fullback, more in anticipation than fear.