Rugby provides an exercise on how to play the game

ON RUGBY:The contrast between the recent antics in the Santiago Bernabéu with the behaviour in Limerick and Dublin was telling

A COUPLE of sports were placed in the limelight by showpiece European semi-finals these last few days. In one, there were no histrionics, no feigning injuries and no waving imaginary yellow cards to have opponents punished, indeed no jostling and haranguing of the referee, no touchline ranting or fighting, and despite fairly hammering into each other remorselessly, at the end there were only handshakes all round and two tunnels to applaud each other off the pitch.

And, oh yes, the referees and officials were not only afforded respect but also assistance from technology.

It didn’t stop there. There was no selective visionary impairment to see only wrongs committed against one team, no besmirching of the opposing team or manager’s achievement, no paranoia and, with it, attempted bullying of officials.

Admittedly, Leicester were still bleating on about perceived injustices in the build-up to Saturday’s semi-final, fully three weeks on, with coach Richard Cockerill telling Midi Olympique: “The Leinster players were allowed to do a lot of things against us in that area. They played on the ground, they slowed down our ball and that allowed them to prevent us developing our game. They could try to do the same thing against Toulouse.”

This was fanning the flames of perceived French injustices even before kick-off, but despite the acute disappointment of having their grip on the trophy wrenched from them, Toulouse, like Leinster a year before, could hardly have been more generous in defeat.

Okay, there was one instance of a player brandishing an imaginary yellow card, namely Louis Picamoles in the moments before Brian O’Driscoll was sinbinned – for which he was mildly rebuked by his captain Jean Bouilhou and told to keep quiet. Given this followed a line-break by Vincent Clerc and was a couple of yards from the Leinster line, and the great man was coming from the wrong side and played at the ball with his left hand, it seemed like a case of fair cop guvnor. Put another way, had it been at the other end those of a blue persuasion would have been screaming for it. A pity, too, that it gave way to booing for David Skrela’s ensuing penalty.

Leinster were the more patient and disciplined side at the breakdown, and despite the penalty count going 11-6 against them, Guy Noves and Toulouse had no complaints about the refereeing, and it was hard to disagree with any of those penalty decisions.

The only bad decisions were by the touchjudges. Rugby is keen to keep a tight disciplinary rein on the game, although given Seán O’Brien was retaliating to Yannick Nyanga’s illegal tug, it would have been harsh had he been cited and suspended for the final.

It was a cracking game, and referee Dave Pearson has to receive some of the credit for that. If nothing else, he was at least consistent at the breakdown, especially for players going off their feet.

As for the events of Thomond Park: why do all of Monsieur Poite’s games seem to degenerate into pile-ups at the breakdown, liberal interpretation of the offside line and general anger and bemusement among players and supporters alike?

In the build-up to the second Harlequins try, Poite awarded them a turnover scrum after both tacklers went to ground over the ball, the next player in did as well and, unbelievably, so did a fourth Quins player.

Admittedly, his laissez-faire attitude at the breakdown mirrors the Top 14, where there is also liberal (at best) interpretation of offside. But once again it raises the question as to how the IRB deem Poite part of the elite 10 for the World Cup to the exclusion of referees such as Mark Lawrence and Alan Lewis?

Regardless, any Irish notions of a superiority complex over English opposition can partly be dispelled by the events of Thomond Park. Granted, Munster looked to be distracted from the off.

Perhaps they were a little over-confident, or maybe subconsciously they didn’t relish the idea, had they won, of being an appetiser to Leinster’s main course the next day. How else to explain such loose and careless back play?

In any event, if a team isn’t right mentally from the start it’s very hard to rectify as if turning on a tap.

It’s also fitting Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins will face the man whose legacy Joe Schmidt and Leinster are building on, Michael Cheika, in the Friday night beforehand.

Maintaining the theme of a power shift in Irish rugby from Munster to Leinster – at under-age and senior provincial level – might the same be about to happen at club level? Old Belvedere may be only the second Leinster team in 21 years of the AIL to win the trophy, but this was the third year in a row a Leinster club reached the final and the second year in a row they provided two semi-finalists.

Furthermore, Munster clubs are suffering an increasing player drain, whether through emigration or migration to Dublin, and their schools and clubs are not producing anything like the same number of players. Five of next season’s AIL Division 1A will come from Leinster, along with five from Munster, which is another indictment of the league’s revised structures.

The IRFU get many things right but they seem to pay lip-service to the club game. The proposed reduction in the number of contracted players permitted to play for clubs and the increased number of provincial A games will damage the clubs further.

For the final, a pitch such as the RDS would have been preferable, as would a “free” Saturday next weekend. And, like the Magners League or Super 14, the team which tops the league table should have choice of venue for the final. The choice of the Donnybrook beach on the Sunday of Heineken Cup final weekend was also an insult to the club game and, especially, the finalists.

PS: In addition to the FIRA European Under-18 success of the Irish (schools) in France the weekend before last, another Irish under-18s (clubs) team also had a significant when on French soil a fortnight ago when they beat their French counterparts 27-14.

One of the Irish secondrows in that win, 16-year-old Seán O’Brien, followed that up by scoring one of Galwegians tries in Sunday’s All Ireland Under-17 Cup final win over Gorey by 20-7 in Naas.

In a notable Connacht double in Naas, a storming second-half display helped Buccaneers beat Malone 27-6 to be crowned All Ireland Under-19 champions.