Celtic League/Leinster 16 Cardiff Blues 9: Hardly vintage Leinster, though at least they dug deep to carve out a hard-earned win and so prevent a first whitewash for the Irish provinces in one Magners League weekend. Not unlike their provincial comrades and rivals, however, Leinster too are struggling to find their rhythm in a disrupted start to the campaign.
There wasn't much wrong with their collective desire, or their positive intentions, and ultimately, they rolled their sleeves up and defended their line bravely to withstand five minutes of pressure on their line in injury-time. But it should never, ever have come to that.
Leinster had more than enough territory, primary possession, line breaks and a sharper cutting edge to have put the game beyond Cardiff's reach long before then.
They were also given plenty of direction from half-backs Chris Whitaker and Felipe Contepomi, yet accuracy eluded them when they had the opportunities to put Cardiff away, and the malaise of handling errors prevented the kind of continuity they thrive off.
A win is a win is a win?
"I'm not into that cliché," said a frustrated Michael Cheika.
"We played well, but we just handled the ball poorly all night; dropped the ball, dropped the ball. We actually constructed good plays, we made breaks, we did improve from Edinburgh but we dropped the ball. I couldn't take it any more. The boys know it. It's nothing I'm not saying out of term. If we can get the continuity happening, we're going to create a few problems for teams."
When Contepomi kicked them 13-6 ahead just as Gary Powell began his 10 minutes in the sin bin for a flurry of punches at Will Green - who showed remarkable restraint not to retaliate and thereby join him on the sidelines - Leinster couldn't turn the screw.
The referee over-ruled his touchjudge, at the behest of the Cardiff players, in adjudging that Contepomi's penalty to the corner had drifted into touch in-goal, and in one of two further occasions they went to the corner Harry Vermass overthrew a second time.
The good-sized Saturday night crowd of 5,200 stayed with their team all the way but many will again be wondering if Leinster have the requisite power in their tight five to turn teams over. At the very least they have to be more accurate in delivering ball to their array of gamebreakers.
It says much about Leinster forward play that Eddie O'Sullivan hasn't picked one tight five forward in his extended squad of 34 which went into a four-day camp yesterday.
Only one of the starting tight five here is Ireland qualified (indeed nine of the 22 on duty on Saturday were not Irish qualified in what some supporters are calling New South Leinster) and the only real home-grown absentee is Malcolm O'Kelly.
But with Ben Gissing having fallen out of favour and gone to Calvisano, Leinster are chronically short of ball-carriers up front. James Heaslip, it's true, has maintained his dynamic form and Stephen Keogh looks like he could be a good acquisition, but it wasn't until the introduction of Bernard Jackman that the tight five provided some real go-forward punch.
Nobody illuminated the night more than Luke Fitzgerald. Aside from a strong mentality and innate self-confidence, the 18-year-old is blessed with brilliant footwork and pace, and having twice wriggled out of a thicket of opponents to scamper upfield, he then took a high kick from Chris Czekaj and stepped away from the onrushing winger in one stunning move.
These moments, virtually out of nothing, created a buzz in the crowd and perhaps even his teammates.
Niall Ronan's injury and slow, limping retreat from the fray turned out to be no more than a bruised hip and ultimately Leinster were heavily indebted to two big plays by Chris Whitaker, first having the presence of mind and skill to give a try-scoring offload on the blind side to Michael Beirne, a useful go-forward foil for much of the night, after good work by Kieran Lewis, Contepomi and Beirne.
In the same corner late on, Whitaker pushed up on the blindside to envelop Martyn Williams and thereby prevent him making a try-scoring offload on the blindside.
Whitaker's first impressions of Donnybrook in a competitive setting were all positive.
"The pitch is sensational. It was a little bit dewy out there and the crowd were sensational for our first home game. It's a great feeling to play in front of a massive crowd, they really get behind you and you really know they're there."
The Cardiff coach, Dai Young, could at least take comfort from his weary, injury-ravaged team taking a bonus point from the contest. Young said his players were frustrated with referee Andy MacPherson's policing of the breakdown area, where he claimed Leinster "were slowing the ball down, and coming in from all angles".
Asked if he would lodge an official complaint about MacPherson, the Cardiff coach said:
"I'll look at the tape and if it warrants an official complaint then we might look at that," before adding dryly: "but it's not really my style and we'll probably have him again."
Leinster weren't exactly enamoured with the officiating either, especially the application of the advantage law and policing of the lineout, and for all Young's protestations, Cardiff's indiscipline, especially away from home, does appear to be a recurring theme.
The Statistics:
SCORING SEQUENCE: 18 mins: Blair pen 0-3; 24: Contepomi pen 3-3; 26: Blair pen 3-6; 37: Beirne try, Contepomi con 10-6; (half-time 10-6); 43: Contepomi pen 13-6; 66: Blair pen 13-9; 71: Contepomi 16-9.
LEINSTER: R Kearney; L Fitzgerald, K Lewis, M Berne, D Hickie; F Contepomi (capt), C Whitaker; R McCormack, H Vermaas, W Green, A Byrnes, O Finegan, S Keogh, N Ronan, J Heaslip.
Replacements: K Gleeson for Ronan (40 mins), R Corrigan for McCormack, B Jackman for Vermass (both 57 mins), McCormack for Keogh (82 mins).
Not used: D Toner, G Easterby, C Warner, G Brown.
Sinbinned: W Green (81 mins).
CARDIFF BLUES: B Blair; C Czekaj, T Riley, M Stcherbina, M Luveitasau; N Macleod, W Evans; J Yapp, G Williams, G Powell, B Davies, J Goode, M Lewis, M Williams, X Rush (capt).
Replacements: T Shanklin for Stcherbina (19 mins), T Felise for Yapp (32-39 mins) and for M Lewis (47-54 mins), R Sidoli for Goode, S Morgan for Lewis (both 62 mins), E Fairhurst for Evans (62 mins), R Johnson for G Williams (77 mins).
Not used: D Flanagan, D Hewitt.
Sinbinned: G Powell (43-53 mins), B Davies (80 mins).
Referee: Andy MacPherson (SRU).
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