One-trick Leinster are forgetting how to bully opponents

RUGBY ANALYST:THE ONLY phrase I could use on Setanta to describe Connacht's performance two weeks ago was, "you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear".

And when it was 49-0 with half the match remaining against Cardiff I begged the IRFU to do what was right and put them out of their misery. A humane killer of sorts was required. It's simply not fair to expose young, hungry players with talent to that type of onslaught week in, week out. Not to mention all those associated with the team.

Of course, we've all been through our fair share of drubbings regardless of the sport - just look at Waterford a few weeks back, or even the mighty Kilkenny hurlers who conceded 5-18 to Galway in 2005. It happens, and my drubbing came in the Mardyke in 1997. It was to be my first and only Dudley Cup experience. UCC v UCG. As I was playing with Old Crescent at the time I was league-tied for the other UCG encounters and this was a great chance to play with "College". So when UCG's rugby president Bruce St John Blake called I was delighted to tog out. And after just two training sessions, off to Cork we sped with talk of banana skins.

We lost 116-7. When Dominic Crotty scored his seventh try I begged the ref, "Next score wins." But unfortunately Brian Hickey, the UCC coach, had other plans.

Our only bit of good fortune came from the touch judge David McHugh, for he failed to see two knock-ons and a forward pass in the movement that led up to our only try. The following week he refereed England v France in the Five Nations. Some preparation!

With all this in mind I have always had a strong feeling for the underdog. Many notable fixtures stand out, such as Japan v Canada in RWC 2007 - a match Japan won in injury time.

But last Sunday topped them all when Connacht, having conceded 127 points in their previous four games, braved the Magners League champions. Certainly with Luke Fitzgerald in rude health and Rocky Elsom and CJ van der Linde on board, a large win was on the cards for Leinster.

But what unfolded was extraordinary. The relevance to Irish rugby is simple: we need Connacht. The relevance to Ulster, Munster and Leinster is more important: regardless of your team's obvious deficiencies you can still impose your game plan on the opposition.

Leinster's last two matches have been a mystery to me. Why, with so much talent, have they become a one-dimensional side of fatties queuing up to bosh the ball into contact, then hit the deck for a laboured 10-second ruck?

They have been too narrow and their back line has been happy to drift across the field into touch time and again. There are few hard lines being run, few decoys and no offloads.

Worryingly after two mighty starts, against Munster and then Connacht, where they changed the point of attack and offloaded at will, they fell away, becoming a one-man show with each player content to find the tackler, go to ground and, worse, spill the ball.

There were no offloads and the errors have been cruel. Elsom is a beast who will prove immense for Leinster this season but I ask a question: if he had been playing in a gold shirt last Sunday with 15 hungry All Blacks running after him would he have spilled that ball so close to the line?

Off course with a class side like Leinster there's no need to panic; there are solutions.

For example, a feature I enjoyed so much last year was Leinster's ability to change the focus of attack, especially from around the fringes. Their restarts from mauls and dead rucks were so subtle you could easily miss it. A forward peeling from the maul, offloading to the scrumhalf, a simple pass to a hard line attacking the weak shoulder, two yards and then another pop. Within seconds they were able to move the point of attack and have the opposition reeling.

So how did Connacht manage to impose their game and stun Leinster? Rugby is based on two simple principles.

The first fundamental, as with all field sports, is to create space and then exploit that space. Leinster did create space but were unable to exploit it. In contrast Connacht displayed the composure and skills to finish off their hard-worked chances.

The second fundamental is even more crucial and, with the weekend in store for all four provinces, absolutely vital. You must bully the opposition. Look at Rob Kearney's "counterattack" in the first half against Connacht, meek with no support; it ended in three more points for the home team. A bully facing those odds would have hammered the ball deep into Connacht's half.

Let's hope all four provinces will bully the opposition into submission this weekend.

So how did UCG fair in that season's Dudley Cup? Well, unfortunately we lost out on points difference . . . But I got my own back because Old Crescent beat UCC 78-3 that same season! A fair achievement as UCC had Dominic Crotty, Frankie Sheahan, Peter Stringer and their captain John Kelly, who have amassed over 150 caps between them. Unfortunately the UCG video analyst failed to spot that.