Leinster bring all the emotion, the intelligence and the rugby

Heineken Cup Munster v Leinster: Leinster 25 Munster 6FOR ALL the talk of selections, tactics and other cerebral factors, rugby remains in essence a physical fight, and it's amazing what a bottomless well of desire can do. Leinster came into this game with all the burning grievances and all the historical baggage, and perhaps even a dollop of fear that came with being underdogs. And how they bottled it and channelled it on this, their day of days so far.

Munster have reached new-found levels of professionalism and consistency these days, but on such a highly charged day that wasn’t enough, for it was Leinster who brought most of the emotion to the party to end Munster’s 10-match winning streak.

Nothing drew a line in the sand quite like the battery of first-up tackles in the opening quarter or so which sent shudders of doubt through Munster bodies and minds.

There were a host of examples: Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll stepping up and engulfing Alan Quinlan; shuddering hits by Rocky Elsom, a human wrecking ball, on Ian Dowling and many others; by Shane Horgan on Paul Warwick; Leo Cullen on David Wallace. And then there was Felipe Contepomi wrestling the ball from Earls and Elsom ripping the ball off Denis Leamy.

Never before this season have Lifeimi Mafi and Wallace had so many carries for so little yardage.

Even then, when breached, Leinster scampered and covered brilliantly. Isa Nacewa brought down Earls in full, magnificent flight just short of the line, and Elsom positioned himself intelligently off the recycle. The fullback also denied Doug Howlett.

Nowhere was their blue line threatened more regularly than up the middle, where Mafi and Earls strained every sinew to pierce the D’Arcy-O’Driscoll axis. Only once were they broken, in the sixth minute, but thereafter D’Arcy and O’Driscoll just about kept their dancing midfield counterparts in check. That was a superlative effort in application and concentration.

Of course, in this and much else, there was plenty of intelligence and precision applied too, not least by O’Driscoll. His perfectly timed passes were instrumental in creating the tries by D’Arcy and Luke Fitzgerald which took them to the winning line, and his brain was still on high alert when he reasoned that Ronan O’Gara was about to skip-pass to Paul O’Connell and broke the defensive line to seal the victory with a 70-metre intercept try.

Nacewa’s selection at fullback was vindicated for his stunning line and pass for D’Arcy’s opening try.

But there was so much more than that as well: his security and strength at the back, his counter-attacking runs, his passing and kicking.

Indeed, another significant and surprising factor in how the game unfolded was Leinster’s superior kicking game, with the halfbacks and back three all contributing to exploiting the poor array of Munster kicks. Leinster varied the points of their kicking game cleverly by also using O’Driscoll and Nacewa in the outside channels.

By contrast, Munster used Paul Warwick’s boot only once in this regard, and even that was badly executed.

The start of the second half highlighted the point. After O’Gara and Dowling had scuffed kicks, and Nacewa had comfortably countered off O’Gara’s up-and-under, Jonathan Sexton cleverly put the ball in behind Munster in the build-up to Leinster’s critical second try, whereupon O’Gara cross-kicked poorly straight to Sexton, Warwick missed a penalty to touch and Fitzgerald shepherded a long punt down the middle to the end-goal line for a Leinster scrum back in Munster territory.

There were so many huge moments: that try-saving tackle by Nacewa on Earls was high among them after the young centre had taken a stunning line onto Mafi’s one-handed offload in the tackle.

That was swiftly followed by Elsom’s thunderous, blindside hit on Dowling. Admittedly Leinster were fortunate the officials hadn’t detected Elsom was blatantly offside.

Had Munster drawn first blood, who knows? But the majority of the passion and the rugby belonged to Leinster, and they made the running. They were never behind in what was, almost, a pillar-to-post victory.

Contepomi had an edgy start, but as ever he is nothing if not brave and the first of five carries, when he bounced off O’Gara, was a statement of intent.

It was a terrible pity that his job, and personal redemption, was only one-quarter completed when his left knee twisted horribly.

Credit to Sexton, who stepped into the breach, and bided his time to nail a penalty with his first kick, and thereafter played with striking composure.

Leinster still had to make things happen, though they had already given note of their intentions with a brilliantly worked move when Elsom scythed through off Contepomi’s inside ball with Horgan a clever decoy/blocker.

Rarely are sides opened up from off the top ball from the front of the line, but Chris Whitaker’s huge pass off Malcolm O’Kelly’s tap-down enabled Sexton to feed O’Driscoll, who saw that Earls had shot up too early, and Nacewa took a superb in-and-out line to float a beauty in front of D’Arcy. Even then, Earls might have completed his covering tackle on D’Arcy before the latter’s momentum took him over.

Going in at half-time, Leinster would have been buoyed by their performance and their utterly deserved 11-6 lead.

Against that, Munster would have been relieved to be only five points adrift thanks to moments of ill-discipline by Cian Healy and Elsom which allowed O’Gara to kick his penalties.

Leinster were also looking the more battle-weary, with Contepomi gone and several others having needed attention.

If ever there was a day when Leinster were going to go beyond the pain barrier, it was this one.

That said, it was the second try by Fitzgerald that injected a fresh surge of psychic energy.

From another O’Kelly take, Leinster went through three phases – recycling off carries by each of their frontrowers – before Whitaker, Sexton and Nacewa put some width on the move. O’Driscoll and Horgan ran straight and put the ball through their hands for Fitzgerald to step inside Warwick.

Howlett possibly defended a little too narrowly and Warwick’s attempted tackle was poor, but it was a quality score.

With 60 minutes up, O’Driscoll applied the coup de grace for his fifth try of the competition.

Cometh the hour . . .

SCORING SEQUENCE: 16 mins: Contepomi pen 0-3; 18: O'Gara pen 3-3; 26: Sexton pen 3-6; 31: D'Arcy try 3-11; 37: O'Gara pen 6-11; (half-time 6-11); 44: Fitzgerald try, Sexton con 6-18; 61: O'Driscoll try, Sexton con 6-25.

MUNSTER: P Warwick; D Howlett, K Earls, L Mafi, I Dowling; R O'Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell (capt), A Quinlan, D Wallace, D Leamy. Replacements: N Ronan for Leamy, B Murphy for Warwick (both 65 mins), T Buckley for Hayes (67 mins), D Fogarty for Flannery (72 mins), M O'Driscoll for O'Callaghan, M Prendergast for Stringer (both 74 mins), D Hurley for Earls (78 mins).

LEINSTER: I Nacewa; S Horgan, B O'Driscoll, G D'Arcy, L Fitzgerald; F Contepomi, C Whitaker; C Healy, B Jackman, S Wright, L Cullen (capt), M O'Kelly, R Elsom, S Jennings, J Heaslip. Replacements: R McCormack for Jennings (19-27 mins), J Sexton for Contepomi (26 mins), G Dempsey for O'Driscoll (38-39 mins) and for Fitzgerald (59 mins), J Fogarty for Jackman (63 mins), S O'Brien for Jennings (74 mins), D Toner for Cullen (80 mins). Not used: S Keogh. Sinbinned: Healy (17-27 mins).

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)