Hines just wants to put things right

RUGBY:NATHAN HINES, the Australian of Scottish allegiance who returns to French rugby next season, is as qualified as any Leinster player to ask what happened in the second half of last Saturday's Munster game – mainly because he was in the thick of it. Just as he will be against the Leicester Tigers on Saturday evening.

Munster happened and, for certain, the English champions will have taken note. Leading 20-9 at the interval, Leinster seemed certain to inflict a rare silence upon the Thomond Park faithful.

“I think we lost a little bit of momentum. I think that we were a little bit inaccurate – I got turned over by Rog (O’Gara), of all people – and we didn’t run out, we lost a bit of shape. Just bit by bit Munster got back into the game, got a couple of penalties that relieved a little bit of pressure off them, and they kicked some penalties as well,” said Hines.

“I think the momentum just built and built over that half, and it just got away from us.”

The referee last Saturday, England’s Andrew Small, got a pass from Hines. The main lesson to be taken from the Limerick turnaround is how Leinster react if the Tigers start eating up the patchy Aviva turf. “I think whether we were penalised or not, the ball was still in our court down in Munster. I think if we were a little bit better, a little bit smarter and kept our shape better and not given them opportunities to play, then I still think we would have won – irrespective of decisions by referees.

“I think it’s just down to us to make sure we forget about what’s happened, who has blown the whistle and why, and make sure when we have the ball we control things that we can control.”

The 72-times capped Scottish lock/flanker will be missed when he heads off to ASM Clermont Auvergne after the World Cup, leaving serious expectations of Devin Toner or the incoming South African Steven Sykes to match his physicality and general ability to make a nuisance of himself.

Hines may be seen as a mercenary heading back to France after just two seasons but, at 34, who could blame him? His commitment to Leinster is unquestioned as seen when he squeezed in the Scarlets fixture mid-Six Nations.

“You just have to roll with it, don’t you? Sometimes it’s hard going from Heineken Cup to Six Nations, and then if you’re in you have to come back for the off week and play Magners League – I mean, most of the Irish guys don’t, but I had to come back and play – and then go back again.

“It’s just the way it’s got to go, and I think as a squad we are really quite tight and every member of the squad knows what sort of pattern we are trying to play and how we are trying to play.”

Leinster know how to beat the English champions because they did it in the 2009 final. Hines may not have been involve then but he’s aware what will be required.

“They do what they do, and if we’re not more accurate and effective than we were last weekend then we could end up on the end of the same result. Leicester’s game is a pressure game, isn’t it? If they get any sort of ascendancy up front then they have got (Toby) Flood, a good distributor, and good runners off him.”

Anyone who has met this big son of Wagga Wagga will tell you how pointless an exercise it is to seek a poignant response to this being his farewell lap as a Leinster player. “That sort of thought doesn’t enter my mind at the moment; I’m just worried about getting prepared for the weekend. If it is then it is, but it’s not really at the forefront of my mind.

“I just really want to win and play the semi-final, and personally I think I need to play better than I did last weekend.

“That’s more on my mind than whether I’m going to play (at the Aviva Stadium) again or not.”