Three out of four ain't bad but still plenty to improve on

RUGBY:THREE WINS out of four but in truth this wasn't one of the most distinguished of Heineken Cup opening weekends by the provinces, least of all by the two Irish teams who have won in five of the last seven seasons.

Leinster at least travel to Llanelli next Saturday with an unconvincing win under their belts at home to Exeter but Munster already have no room for manoeuvre when they host Edinburgh next Sunday after their self-destructive defeat to Racing Metro.

Both also have their injury woes, with Munster resigned to being without Ronan O’Gara due to the injured hamstring which forced his first-half departure in the 22-17 defeat to their limited, injury-ravaged, Parisian hosts on a Stade de France mudbath which had been used the night before for a soccer international.

“I haven’t had the medical report yet but leaving the field with a hamstring? I suspect it’s more than a one-weeker,” admitted Rob Penney, while O’Gara has apparently given himself no chance of recovering.

Last week Munster lost Keith Earls for the opening rounds of the competition with a groin injury, and they will hope Donncha O’Callaghan (hamstring) and Niall Ronan (groin) return to fitness, while Felix Jones came through a full 80 minutes of British and Irish Cup action unscathed.

The expectation must be that Saracens will be on ten points by the time (12.45) Munster kick-off at Thomond Park after hosting Racing on Saturday following their 45-0 win away to Edinburgh.

Munster are steeped in wet weather, knock-out rugby, but their tactically muddled defeat in Paris to Racing on Saturday was more kamikaze rugby than cup rugby, with O’Gara of all people, inviting Racing back into the game with a couple of risky plays. Then, having worked their way into a 17-16 lead, Conor Murray ill-advisedly ran from inside his own 22 to concede the penalty which turned the game on its head once more.

While Penney admitted it was “unbelievable” that Munster didn’t kick more at times, he commented: “It’s really interesting everyone talks about this grand plan of using width. All we want to do is use space. There was nothing wrong with what we did today. We played some rugby. I think we got on the rough end of some decisions and in tight matches they’re costly. The boys’ ability to use space won’t be compromised through some inability to finish at this point because it’s taking us in a good direction. It’s a direction that’s going to be challenging as we move forward.”

No team has ever progressed to the knockout stages after losing their opening two matches and Penney acknowledged next Sunday is a must-win, as it is for last season’s beaten semi-finalists.

“We’ve just got to regroup and get back to Thomond. We’ve been away from there a long time now. If you look at it objectively you’d say that’s a pretty tough draw that we’ve had away from home. And the boys have been in the battle every time.

“So as I said I’m really proud of where they’re getting to and where these young blokes are trying to go. And the obvious thing is now we need to put some results on the board to reflect the work that’s going in.”

Leinster will be hopeful that Rob Kearney and Gordon D’Arcy will come back into the equation for their trek to Llanelli on Saturday lunchtime, with Clermont having stolen a march on this pool after their 49-16 win over the Scarlets following the sending off of Morgan Stoddart in the 38th minute with the score 13-all.

“To be honest, they (the Scarlets) know that if they don’t win next week their Heineken Cup season is virtually over so they will throw everything that they can at us and we’re going to have to take what we’ve got,“ said Joe Schmidt. “I’d say that in our hand there’s a couple of rocks missing that we’d like to have, so there’s a bit of gravel we’re going to have to throw at them, to a degree. And that mix in the hand might not be as powerful or as well-oiled as we’d like it, but we’ll certainly go there and give it our best shot.”

Repeating his description of the pool as “a bit of a stinker”, Schmidt added: “but we have to just try to fight our way through it and hope that at the end of it, we can keep our hopes alive coming out of the pool. Any sort of qualification we’d be happy to get out of this pool.”

Asked what his emotions were as Argentinian Ignacio Mieres lined up a long-range penalty that would have denied Leinster a win, Schmidt said: ‘You’ve just got to be realistic, you’ve got to plan. ‘Okay, if he gets this I think I need to get everyone together and focus a bit more on the positives; if he doesn’t get it, they’ll get it when they get inside.’

“Pretty much that, because we do have to be better than that, and with the utmost respect to Exeter because in pieces, I thought we weren’t too bad today but they didn’t allow those pieces to be too long or too effective.’

On Saturday evening, Connacht host the English champions Harlequins, who will be in vengeful mood after last season’s defeat at the Sportsground, buoyed by their 19-10 win in Parma over Zebre. Eric Elwood had no fresh injury concerns arising out of the game, though neither did Harlequins after storming to a 40-13 bonus point at home to Biarritz with 27 second-half points.