RUGBY: LEINSTER v ULSTEROSTENSIBLY THERE is no ambiguity in focus as far as Leinster are concerned, their sole preoccupation tomorrow night's Magners League semi-final against Ulster at the RDS. The Heineken Cup final and a tilt at the Northampton Saints in Cardiff will keep until Saturday morning.
It’s not a strictly true assertion in that Leinster coach Joe Schmidt will have already embarked on preliminary analysis for Saturday week’s game at the Millennium Stadium and will have thought long about how to best husband his resources to maximise his team’s chances of winning two matches in eight days: it’s unlikely the match-day personnel will be identical for both occasions.
It’s a balancing act Schmidt has discharged all season to great effect.
Scrum coach Greg Feek confirmed with the exception of long-term injury victim Rob Kearney Leinster boast a full roster from which to choose for tomorrow night’s clash. He considers the previous two league wins over Ulster this season largely irrelevant and emphasises the importance of focusing on their own preparation.
“It is the key and that is part of the mental side of it. At training, Joe (Schmidt) drives the session and there is pressure on everyone there to get everything right; the boys have to be ready for that and that prepares you for the game also. We’ve mentioned this before that this is a knock-out game and we want to win it: Ulster are a team you have to respect.”
Feek’s work with the Leinster scrum – he’s also spent time working with Ireland – and the ensuing improvement has been a significant part of underpinning the team’s development to a point where they are competing, potentially for places in two finals.
The strength of the province in this facet of the game has facilitated both attacking patterns and defence systems. The New Zealander chose to deflect the bouquets. “You can’t build a house if you don’t have the right architecture to get it up there. It’s a combination; everyone’s got to have the right attitude and front up.”
What he did concede was how pleased he was with the enthusiasm of the players. “The key thing is probably the buy-in (players embracing the work) from everybody. That’s not just at senior level but the academy and the club as a whole. It’s about how the boys have taken ownership of that. They have wanted to grow. I haven’t come in and reinvented the wheel. It has just been getting the basics right. It’s been pleasing not just for myself, Joe and the management but for the players as well.”
While he was pleased with how the scrum performed in the European semi-final against Toulouse, he was less enthusiastic about the concentration at times in victory over the Glasgow last weekend.
“I suppose after the (Toulouse) game I thought, ‘Jeez they didn’t have the calls there’. It’s good to be able to match them. But against Glasgow we let ourselves down a bit. Good teams need to be at a level every week. Against Ulster this week, they’re a difficult pack and we can’t afford to have any more up and down periods for the next two weeks anyway and this week, particularly. We’re demanding from the boys and the boys themselves are demanding to get our stuff right, the little things right and the attitude right.”
Hooker Richardt Strauss has been a stand-out performer for Leinster and Feek offered an interesting insight into how a player who is often smaller than his counterpart can be so effective at scrum time.
“Straussy wasn’t born as a big man, but he has got menace. You can see that in his ball carrying. When a player has that explosiveness you should be able to use it somewhere confrontationally and the forwards always need it at scrum time. His technique has to be right on in terms of getting low.
“It’s difficult for bigger guys to go up against him when he’s in a good position. I think he got a huge amount out of marking (William) Servat a few weeks ago. To be able to play Heineken Cup against those big teams, you learn from it and you think, ‘Yes I do have to get all my is dotted and my ts crossed in terms of what I do individually’. It becomes a game within a game in that sense.”
Tomorrow night will be no different for Strauss and co.
