ON RUGBY:SATURDAY WASN'T just a great day for Leinster rugby and a vintage day in the sun for Irish sport, it was most probably the best result for Irish rugby. Another defeat for Leinster in a major, season-defining meeting with Munster might just have been one too many for them to take, writes GERRY THORNLEY
Irish rugby’s recent good health has been founded mostly on Munster, and it is a burden that needs to be spread more. The confidence and feel-good factor from Leinster winning last Saturday, and more especially if they follow it up by reaching their Holy Grail of a Heineken Cup title, could conceivably sustain them for years, never mind the marketing possibilities that would come with being champions of Europe.
As an organisation, they’ve made huge strides in recent years, tapping into the vast reservoir of potential new fans to become the best supported team in the Magners League. Their improved recruitment policy under Michael Cheika was also hugely instrumental in Saturday’s epic win. Even the Leinster bean-counters in the stands must have been thinking “worth every penny” as they watched the aptly named Rocky do his thing. Made of granite, he’s given Leinster that hard-edged number six that they’ve lacked ever since they let Trevor Brennan go, and more.
Pound for pound, the durable and versatile Stanley Wright (45 appearances out of 48 games in the last two seasons, all but three from the start) is possibly the best investment of all.
And then there were the others brought in to give the pack a harder edge: Leo Cullen, whose command of restarts, leadership and physicality made him one of the men of the match; Shane Jennings and Bernard Jackman; as well as Chris Whitaker (such an important cog in the whole machine) and Isa Nacewa.
The biggest pleasure arising from Saturday’s win, perhaps, is seeing long-standing stalwarts such as Brian O’Driscoll, Malcolm O’Kelly, Girvan Dempsey, Shane Horgan, Gordon D’Arcy and Leo Cullen earning the opportunity of a lifetime. But like the overdue Grand Slam, the pity is that the likes of Denis Hickie, Reggie Corrigan, Shane Byrne, Victor Costello and Keith Gleeson won’t be a part of it.
Then again, it will partly be for them as well, and so many other people associated with Leinster will have taken pleasure in last Saturday’s win. One of the abiding memories of the night was meeting so many former Leinster club players who had toiled through the 1990s, making those train journeys from Heuston Station on a Saturday morning to AIL venues in Limerick and Cork, and usually returning beaten. They all felt part of this redemption story.
Yet, in a curious way, all that seething resentment made it almost easier to “get up for” a crack at Munster than it might be against Leicester, even in a final.
There’s also the issue of Leinster “backing up” a brilliant performance with another next time out in the Heineken Cup. Like the French in World Cups, Leinster have invariably thrown in at least one such tour de force in every campaign.
“Backing up” wins is an issue Cheika addressed at the start of this season’s European campaign. The competition format ensures three batches of back-to-back games, and after the opening win away to Edinburgh, Cheika reminded his players repeatedly that in his previous three years as coach of nine back-to-back games, only twice had Leinster put together successive wins – at home to Glasgow and away to Bath three seasons ago, and home and away to Agen the following year.
They thrashed Wasps that week, but duly followed up their home win over Castres by losing a week later, and then lost at Wasps before beating Edinburgh a week later.
The widespread feeling before Sunday’s second semi-final was that, somehow, Cardiff would be preferable to Leicester in the final, but maybe there was too much recent history of Irish successes against the Welsh, and Leicester ought to certainly concentrate Leinster minds.
Leicester won’t be easy, they never are, and for all the improvements and expansion under Richard Cockerill, the ever streetwise Tigers are liable to make it a messy affair and do whatever it takes to win – witness the Hand of Back against Munster in ’02.
Whether their involvement in the English Premiership play-offs in the meantime will drain them, in tight affairs they invariably seem to know their way to the finishing line. Somehow you knew they’d win that risible penalty shoot-out, but ERC, who have been supreme tournament organisers over the last 14 years, should hang their heads in shame at contriving to put Martyn Williams and the rest of them through that.
At least in football all players kick the ball, and there’s a goalkeeper to beat, but Sunday’s nonsense could only embarrass players. It was akin to It’s a Knockout circa the 1970s. All that was missing was Stuart Hall guffawing in the background. Having the teams line up at the bottom of each post for a climbing race to the top would have been just as relevant a way of deciding the outcome.
Imagine if the final comes down to sudden-death penalties between Wright and Julian White? Why not have the respective chief executives take them? Better still, they could use golf balls from halfway. “Mick Dawson is using a nine-iron, Peter Wheeler an eight-iron.”
There are any number of options of resolving a drawn tie after extra-time, be it a try countback on the day or over the course of a tournament, sudden death, yellow cards and/or penalty counts. Ideally they should change the rules before the final, even if it’s a long-shot that it could come to that again.
Then, in this vintage Irish season all that remains is for a Leinster coronation for the final, crowning glory. That would mean three Irish teams will have won the trophy, more even than the French pair of Toulouse and Brive. Of course, if Leinster don’t close the deal, Munster supporters will be quick to blame them for not completing an Irish clean sweep of all the pots and pans on offer this season.
Although, as one Leinster supporter said in retort to a foot soldier from the Red Army when this scenario was immediately put to him, “Sure, do we not get three goes at it?”
Alas, unlikely. As the song says, One Shot.
