Leinster come into their own as serious stuff begins

ON RUGBY:With likely lads slipping down the pecking order and unlikely ones rising, the Ireland team to play South Africa mightn't be what Declan Kidney had imagined

BARELY A minute into the opening jousts at the RDS, Sebastien Chabal was launching himself into Jamie Heaslip and soon Isa Nacewa would be drawing a line in the sand by twice dumping the Caveman. Despite the 1.30pm kick-off, the RDS crackled in a manner no Test match could replicate at such a spectator-unfriendly hour.

Over at the Madejski Stadium, the minute’s silence intended for Moss Keane fittingly became a minute’s applause, and within a minute of the kick-off Munster were announcing their intentions by running the ball from their own 22.

It’s back, never a moment too soon. Whatever it is about the Heineken Cup, ironically enough you could never bottle it.

Racing Metro’s property tycoon/sugar daddy Jacky Lorenzetti spoke before Saturday’s game of taking the club’s various sponsors to an Irish pub for some nice Irish stew. Over in Reading one could discover Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant. Next weekend there are the contrasting delights of Thomond Park, Wembley and Biarritz for the Irish alone. All part of the Cup’s rich tapestry.

Only then will any kind of shape emerge. Already though, the pre-tournament feeling that this season is conceivably the most competitive yet in terms of depth is being borne out. The opening round of matches featured seven losing bonus points, a record of its type since the bonus-point system was introduced six years ago. Across the board, the average winning margin in the dozen games was only eight points.

Viewed in that light, to be one of only four sides to secure a fifth point (and two of the others were against Italian opposition) was undoubtedly a bonus for Leinster. Reflecting on their desultory efforts in comparatively low-key efforts on the road in the Magners League, there are distinct signs Leinster are becoming a big-game player in a mirror image of their talisman Brian O’Driscoll.

That O’Driscoll and some of his team-mates might struggle to reach optimum level at the outset of the season amid the ghostly echoes of Murrayfield is hardly surprising, all the more so 12 months out from a World Cup. They are not, after all, robots. By the by, if the great one can become arguably the first sportsman in history to be hauled off with a pulled hamstring one week and play the next he will add further evidence he truly is a freak which, as Kenny Everett was wont to say, is meant in the best possible taste.

With Nacewa’s hits setting the tone, the starting point for Leinster’s display, considering they looked about half Racing’s size, was their physicality. The Caveman played to his brand name by putting in a big early hit and then predictably charging head first into the nearest available opponent. As in Thomond Park with Sale when in his pomp in that pool finale six years ago, only more so, he has set himself up as a red-rag-cum-source-of- energy for opposing players and fans alike.

Despite the ravages wrought on their forward resources through retirements, injuries and departures, what’s also impressed has been Leinster’s newcomers, be they home grown or imported.

Mike Ross, a frustratingly anonymous figure outside of his scrummaging heretofore, has assuredly never played better than he did on Saturday. Heinke van der Merwe is showing why he was regarded as one of the best scrummaging looseheads on the South African circuit and there were already signs in his cameo appearances last season that as a converted flanker, Richardt Strauss has the skills set to punch above his weight, not to mention bull’s-eye darts.

But it is not only in his lineout play that Devin Toner has excelled in the last two weeks, for at last there looks to be some real devil and anger in his contact work around the pitch. In the latter regard too, the word on the Leinster grapevine was Dominic Ryan could be a bit special, and then there’s Seán O’Brien.

It may not have done much for the development of indigenous scrumhalves – which is something Leinster have curiously struggled with over the years – but Isaac Boss is increasingly looking a very handy acquisition. Not alone is he putting pressure on a rejuvenated Eoin Reddan, but he is providing Leinster with a horses-for-courses alternative in more inclement conditions as well as a change of tack from the bench.

Of course, the return of Jonathan Sexton’s kicking and running game has wrought the biggest difference from those first few weeks and in addition to improved set-pieces it already looks as if Joe Schmidt has added to their attacking game – which he was always liable to do.

There were flaws too. The early efficiency of their clearing out at the breakdown wavered for a while, thus some of their linking between pack and halves was sloppy, and they should never have allowed Racing back to within a score – though the way Leinster simply shrugged their shoulders and upped their intensity was impressive.

A further caveat: that will assuredly be Leinster’s easiest match in this pool of sharks. It helped considerably that Racing gave the impression of a team that really didn’t believe they could win and that their pivot, Jonathan Wisniewski, was ruled out.

The question now is whether Wisniewski will be fit for Racing’s game at home to Clermont next Saturday and, further down the line, what kind of team Racing might put out back to back against Saracens in December and especially in Clermont in round five if they are out of contention. Here it may help Leinster’s cause there’s some bad blood from Racing’s “quarter-final” defeat in Clermont in last season’s “barrage”.

Furthermore, Saracens will be fired up to the hilt for the visit of Leinster after undoing plenty of good approach work in their defeat in Clermont and with this being a flagship fixture for them at Wembley. Brendan Venter’s presence probably wouldn’t have made any difference in the Auvergne, but returning to camp from a family bereavement in South Africa will only serve to up the ante all week in the Sarries camp.

In all of this, amid the plethora of South African frontrowers in the province’s frontrows, Cian Healy and Marcus Horan are benchmen at loosehead, whereas Tony Buckley and Mike Ross are emerging as viable alternatives to John Hayes. Likewise injuries have helped ensure the three men in the queue for Paul O’Connell’s jersey after the summer tour – Mick O’Driscoll, Dan Tuohy and Ed O’Dongohue – have dropped down the pecking order, whereas Donnacha Ryan and Toner are knocking on the door like never before. Mixed messages for Declan Kidney and Gert Smal, there and elsewhere.

The team to play South Africa might yet be nothing like even they had imagined.