Munster's rock of Cashel imposing as ever

MAGNERS LEAGUE LEINSTER v MUNSTER: Keith Duggantalks to the number eight and captain Denis Leamy ahead of tonight's Magners League meeting in the sparkling new home of Irish rugby against a Leinster team certain to be charged with desperation and an obligation to do well

DENIS LEAMY furrows his brow at the proposition that he will be the first Munster man to lead his team out in the new Lansdowne Road.

The Cashel man has had a fairly perfect ascent through professional rugby and captaining the visitors for tonight’s occasion is the latest enhancement of an impressive resume.

He sits wearing a short-sleeve polo shirt on a desperate afternoon in Cork city and pauses as if imagining the spectacle that awaits him. In the rush and push of day to day rugby life, the sights and sound of the Aviva Stadium hadn’t really crossed his mind.

“I haven’t even thought about it, to be honest,” in a voice containing such surprise that it sounds honest.

“But it is an honour, yeah. I will have to take it in my stride. It is another game and I have to think of my own job and encourage the lads around me.”

When Leamy joined Munster on a development contract in 1998, he probably would not have automatically stood out as future captaincy material. Natural athleticism had transformed him from a hurling hopeful to Ireland schoolboy international but cutting it during the rough-edged years of the early professional era was no joke.

The game and the Munster lockerroom was a different place then, filled by the voices of gregarious senor men like Peter Clohessy and Mick Galwey.

In 2005, remembering his apprenticeship, Leamy described himself as “fairly shy” and rarely contributed much to the collective pow-wows the Munster squad indulged in. Instead, he set himself goals and went about achieving them, establishing himself as a first choice player in the process.

Even now, he is a quietly-spoken individual but for someone whose game is predicated on strength and dynamism, there is a calmness about him that makes it easy to see why management would have been drawn to the idea of his captaining the side.

Captaining a team – particularly for players operating in the pack – requires something of a dual personality. He has to commit himself to the physical and mental intensity the match requires. But he cannot become so lost in his own role that he loses sight of the overall functioning of the team.

Leamy’s aptitude for this split contribution shines through when he is asked about the teething problems regarding interpretation of the rules.

“It is tough for the referees and for the players. We are both trying to figure out what is what and I think that sometimes it gets lost in translation. What one referee might give you one week, the next referee won’t. And there is a bit of a breakdown there. But as the season goes on, that will clear up and players will get more comfortable with the calls.

“We are just concentrating on ourselves and being hard on ourselves. Last year we found we were leaking scores from penalties, three points after three points. We have to get a level of discipline across the board.

“Last week we gave away 12 or 13 penalties. Ideally, we want to keep it below 10. But on the whole, we have been progressing.”

Powerful backrow players aren’t normally the best at keeping an accountant’s file of penalties conceded but Leamy possesses that talent for overall assessment and with Paul O’Connell still going through a lonely battle with injury, that leadership is vital to Munster.

It is doubtful Leamy goes in for the kind of fabled motivational speeches O’Connell has made his own but he has brought his own authority to the role. And the season has started brightly under his leadership. Four wins from four, top of the Magners League table and playing with assurance and the solidity of old: their opening differs starkly to Leinster’s fitful performances.

“I think we have gained a lot of confidence from winning which is a huge thing,” Leamy says.

“Probably after last season we had lost that confidence we used to have where we won tight games in the past

“Obviously our scrum is another area where we have improved and we have brought a hard edge across the board, just getting across the line.”

There are two ways of viewing tonight’s game. In one way, it has to be regarded as just a glitzy, gala episode in the bread-and-butter schedule that makes up the Magners League. But within the match lie several sub-contests.

Munster have a burning need to reverse the hold Leinster have enjoyed over them. It is inevitable Leinster will interpret this game as one that can kick-start their season, giving them a jump in their shockingly low position in the league table and a necessary jolt of confidence ahead of European action.

And, at a more peripheral level, the knowledge that Declan Kidney will be up there scribbling notes ahead of the autumn internationals gives an added dimension to the game.

There is more riding on it than the league points on offer and Leamy is candid enough to admit that at some level, places in the Ireland squad does become an issue and that there is an element of an international trial about tonight.

“Probably is a bit, yeah. There are a few of us playing against opposite numbers who we are competing with for places in the Irish set-up. But I think we will all be wearing our respective club jerseys and concentrate on what we can bring to our team. That is what we will be doing.

“There is enormous competition for places in the Irish squad and everything that has gone before – the rivalry and what not – it doesn’t really matter,” he continues.

“If you want, it is sort of a one-off game. A lot of us have grown up playing together and we really know each other so well and we play against each other so often that it makes it one of the great games in Irish sport. It is fantastic to be involved in.

“It kind of reminds me of those school games. You know in the old days you got one shot at the title, you got one day out and nobody wanted to play too much rugby for fear of falling into a trap or making a mistake and it becomes like a game of chess where the forwards keep the ball or kick ball and nobody wants to give an inch or give the opposition and opportunity to counterattack or to live off mistakes.

“Possibly it will come down to who dominates the game physically and makes the least mistakes.”

Physical strength has been a recurring theme in all Munster conversations about tonight’s match. There is nothing disguised about their intention not to lose out at the breakdown. Furthermore, Leamy feels in the past four contests against Leinster, his team abandoned what has always been their core strength: a reliance on the collective effort. “We went off trying to do our own thing. We need to try and stick together.”

The Leinster-Munster rivalry is a curious one. They don’t have to manufacture the edge that accompanies their game even though many players from both sides will become team-mates in the Ireland set-up in a few weeks’ time.

When Leamy was struggling to overcome a shoulder injury two seasons ago, he referenced the advice he was given from Leinster’s Leo Cullen as invaluable. And when he is asked about the importance of Jamie Heaslip to the Leinster set-up, he pays handsome tribute.

“He is a great player. He is the talisman of the Leinster pack. A lot of the work he does Leinster play off. He is there go to man in that he gets them on the front foot and is a very good ruck player. He is someone that if we can stop playing and slow down Leinster’s quick ball then our task becomes a bit easier.

“They have a lot of quality in their pack. He is someone we would like to keep out of the game as much as possible. But fellas like Shane Jennings and Seán O’Brien can get on the ball and cause a lot of trouble and just to play attention to Jamie would be very foolhardy.

“We have to pay respect across the board because they have any number of quality players. The last three or four games they have dominated us at the scrum and at the breakdown. They have won all the battles and for whatever reason we have not matched them. We have to do that on Saturday.”

When Leamy was earning his stripes in a Munster shirt, this fixture was a more modest affair. He smiles as he remembers his debut: an autumn night in Donnybrook, a few thousand at the match and calm enough that the calls of the players could easily be heard throughout the ground. Tonight is proof a remarkable chapter is Irish rugby is roaring on regardless.

Leamy will lead a Munster team into the sparkling new home of Irish rugby against a Leinster team certain to be charged with desperation and an obligation to do well. It is going to be a night for cool heads. The Cashel man will take it in his stride.