Ella's team begins to take shape

Rugby Interview: Barely a month into the Celtic League and Cup and Leinster coach Gary Ella moves closer to a settled group of players to take him through the fall and deep into winter.

From then on, with the European Cup casting a shadow and international players back in harness, the path out of the short days and into spring will assume a different complexion. For now at least, Ella's job is as much a prospector for talent as a coach of the finished article.

With Leinster there are both diamonds to be polished and latent talent to bring to the surface. While the first three or four weeks have whizzed by with a constant stream of bodies filling positions, a more homogeneous look characterises this week's line-up as Leinster face up to Edinburgh arriving on their Donnybrook patch.

"Against Munster (when they lost 15-8 in the Celtic League) we'd national players," says Ella. "Now we don't and we're still having a look. But yeah, we're definitely more settled now as regards the starting 22. It's still a case of form week in, week out. Last week we thought Brian O'Riordan played quite well and so he deserved to get another run this week. But there are some good players not in the 22 yet. Niall Treston is a good example of that. Those players need to play well with their clubs, but because they're out of the 22 doesn't mean that they're out of the squad."

Even before arriving in Ireland, Ella had a strong idea of how the Leinster team would play and in his head had a version of what he wanted out of them, how they should perform. In New South Wales he had worked with former Leinster coach Matt Williams and knew that their philosophies routinely converged.

"A fast, attacking game. Leinster were close to what I wanted to play. Now it's getting the guys used to me. All that's coming together. To blend together a good side you will lose matches along the way, but it was unfortunate to meet a side like Munster early on," he says.

"Experience will teach the guys to play in a certain way and not to do things like infringe at the breakdowns, give away penalties or take unnecessary risks. They have got to know they don't do those things because they have confidence in the defence lines."

Ella's first win came last week in the Celtic Cup against Neath/Swansea and it was laced with heart-stopping moments, good for the tension but hardly designed to relieve anxiety. Still, it put brakes on the inevitable attention that was likely to gather if Leinster had opened their season with a run of defeats.

"The thing is, we've had very few tries scored against us. We can stop giving away penalties because we don't need to. We've identified areas out wide that we need to fix, but I think we've got the base of the game plan. We need fine tuning, but individually we've also had some very good performances from players."

Given last year's success at Donnybrook, Ella has stepped into an invidious position where public expectations may not have diminished as much as the depleted team. But he looks at the season as two separate entities.

"Yeah, I'm looking at it as two seasons," he says. "The Celtic League and Cup, and the Heineken Cup. When the guys come back (from the World Cup) we'll assess the players. It depends on form and injury and how they come back from Australia."

Between now and the end of December, Leinster have at least eight matches, enough for players to impress or fade into the background. The feeling you get is that Ella will be judged later rather than sooner and in the process even turn up something precious.