Leinster power home past Leicester to secure Champions Cup semi-final berth

Leinster 55 Leicester 24

In front of a half-full Aviva, Leinster duly reached their 14th Champions Cup semi-final, and sixth in the last seven seasons, by dispatching the Premiership champions.

The restricted 27,000 ‘capacity’ were vociferous throughout, and thousands of distributed blue flags added to the backdrop, but a quarter-final deserved a full house. That will be the case for the semi-final in three weeks’ time, but after negotiating this repeat tie against the Tigers, Leinster will probably need to be better if it comes to a reprise of last season’s semi-final here against Toulouse.

After a half-full performance, it was the sinbinning of Caelan Doris early in the second half which galvanised Leinster, scoring 10 points in his absence and never looking back.

[ Leinster 55 Leicester 24: As it happened ]

But there was a cost, Ryan Baird departing in the 23rd minute with a shoulder injury – possibly dislocated or an A/C injury – while James Lowe pulled up with what seemed like a hamstring injury.

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Leinster set a blistering tempo and were rewarded with two early tries by the returning Garry Ringrose, who was a constant threat. So was Jimmy O’Brien, not least when ghosting off his wing in Leinster’s clever launch plays.

Leicester sought to slow the game down with injury timeouts, utilised fast defensive line speed, kicked plenty and went after Leinster’s breakdown, where Nika Amashukeli tended to favour the defending side.

But while Leinster rued their failure to be more clinical in the red zone amid last week’s downpour against Ulster, on an idyllic night for rugby their in-house review will highlight more wasted field position and inaccuracies before cutting loose. They were perhaps also guilty of overplaying in their own half.

Leinster won the toss, and as against Ulster, Ross Byrne’s hanging short kick-off up the middle again yielded possession, as the chasing Hugo Keenan beat Mike Brown in the air to deflect the ball down for Jack Conan to gather.

Rapidly recycling the ball, with Dan Sheehan and Garry Ringrose making inroads, the latter then dummied and beat Dan Kelly on his inside shoulder and accelerated to score with ease from the 22, touching down after one minute and 13 seconds.

Leicester’s responded with two high-tempo multiphase attacks of their own, Handré Pollard landing a penalty with the first before failing to connect with Kelly. Leinster were straight on to the attack again and after one penalty to the corner went unrewarded, they exposed a lack of connection between the same two players in attack.

Off a scrum, Byrne pulled the ball back behind Robbie Henshaw’s decoy run with a no-look pass to hit O’Brien’s perfectly timed run off the blindside wing, cutting between Pollard and Kelly. He linked with Ringrose, with Harry Potter unable to fill the gap, and the centre again scored untouched.

In truth, Leinster might have tightened their hold on this game even more but opting for the corner went unrewarded, as did a huge punt by Lowe in what was effectively a 50/22, as did a thrilling, slaloming Keenan counterattack before Byrne struck a 40-metre penalty when Tommy Reffell didn’t roll away.

But more inaccuracies led to Reffell winning a second turnover penalty, and Leicester were rewarded after opting for the corner and Mike Brown’s quick tap after Lowe came through on Jack van Poortvliet, the latter’s flat pass enabled Anthony Watson to finish by the corner flag.

Furthermore, Pollard nailed the touchline conversion to make it a one-score game at half-time.

Leinster threatened again on the restart before Reffell won another turnover penalty, despite being off his feet, and when Doris was binned for a high hit on Jasper Wiese.

That woke up everybody, and the home team and crowd responded in unison in their moment of need. Ringrose won a turnover penalty and a huge seven-man scrum won a penalty which Byrne landed.

Better still, Leinster soon manipulated the Tigers’ defence, delayed passes by Byrne and Henshaw putting Ringrose through yet again, and he had Jamison Gibson-Park in support for the try and a 27-10 lead, albeit Lowe pulled up in support and celebration. Ciarán Frawley came on at fullback, with Keenan moving to the right wing and O’Brien switching across.

Undeterred, Byrne seemed as surprised as anyone to win a turnover penalty before knocking the penalty into the corner and the pack had the obvious satisfaction of earning a penalty try with their maul and a yellow card for Charlie Clare.

Another O’Brien gallop, he was having a field day now, another penalty (inanely conceded by Brown), another driving maul and this time Scott Penny wriggled over.

The epilogue, as opposed to an endgame, saw Leinster respond to Ollie Cracknell’s close-range finish and Potter’s intercept try by O’Brien’s deservedly scoring off Harry Byrne’s no-look inside pass on the gainline and John McKee’s finish off a maul.

The elder Byrne’s two conversions took his haul to 18 pints from a perfect seven kicks.

SCORING SEQUENCE – 2 mins: Ringrose try, Byrne con 7-0; 7: Pollard pen 7-3; 17: Ringrose try, Byrne con 14-3; 32: Byrne pen 17-3; 38: Watson try, Pollard con 17-10; (half-time 17-10); 51: Byrne pen 20-10; 53: Gibson-Park try, Byrne con 27-10; 59: penalty try 32-10; 62: Penny try, Byrne con 41-10; 68: Cracknell try, Pollard con 41-17; 72: O’Brien try, Byrne con 48-17; 75: Potter try, Pollard con 48-24; 78: McKee try, Byrne con 55-24.

LEINSTER: Hugo Keenan; Jimmy O’Brien, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe; Ross Byrne, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Furlong; Ross Molony, James Ryan (capt); Ryan Baird, Caelan Doris, Jack Conan.

Replacements: Michael Ala’alatoa for Furlong (6-12 mins and 60 mins), Scott Penny for Baird (23), Ciarán Frawley for Lowe (55), Jason Jenkins for Molony (60), John McKee for Sheehan, Cian Healy for Porter (both 63), Harry Byrne for Henshaw (67), Luke McGrath for Gibson-Park (71).

Sinbinned: Doris (46-56 mins).

LEICESTER: Mike Brown; Anthony Watson, Harry Potter, Dan Kelly, Freddie Steward; Handré Pollard, Jack van Poortvliet; James Cronin, Julian Montoya (capt), Joe Heyes; George Martin, Cameron Henderson; Hanro Liebenberg, Tommy Reffell, Jasper Wiese.

Replacements: Charlie Clare for Montoya (34 mins), Tom West for Cronin, Dan Cole for Heyes (both 52), Olly Cracknell for Weisse (63), Charlie Atkinson for Pollard (69), Sam Wolstenholme for van Poortvliet, Jimmy Gopperth for Kelly (both 74). Not used: Eli Snyman.

Sinbinned: Clare (60-70 mins), Brown (74).

Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)