RUGBY HEINEKEN CUP QUARTER-FINALS: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to veteran Leinster lock Malcolm O'Kelly ahead of this weekend's quarter-final away to Harlequins
NO ONE represents the concept of Leinster’s diminishing returns more than Malcolm O’Kelly. At 34, and though set to carry on into a 13th campaign with his native province next season, O’Kelly knows better than most that opportunities are running out for an exceptional generation of Leinster players to reach their holy grail of the Heineken Cup.
He has played 154 games for Leinster, and this despite a two-year sojourn with London Irish in the teething stages of professionalism, which is a remarkable tribute to his durability and longevity as well as his ability.
Yet there have been only two semi-finals (he was a 21-year-old fringe player in the inaugural 1995-96 season against Cardiff) and three quarter-finals to show for it.
Coming on the back of Saturday’s hugely disappointing defeat to Munster, which all but wrenched their grip from the Magners League, one of the crumbs to be taken from that game was the carrot of possibly renewing acquaintances with Paul O’Connell and co in another all-Irish semi-final were they to beat Harlequins at the Stoop next Sunday.
“It’s a massive thing to think that we have an opportunity to play them again,” admitted O’Kelly, “and it will certainly give us a bit of drive to get over Harlequins, which is a massive hurdle in itself. It’s there for us, so we just have to really focus and concentrate on Harlequins, and hopefully get another opportunity.”
This will be a first meeting between Leinster and Harlequins, who sit just one point behind Leicester in the English Premiership after winning nine of their last 10 matches. They also won their home pool ties against Ulster, Stade Francais and the Scarlets, though they lost away to Ulster, which may mean Ulster coach Matt Williams could give his Leinster counterpart Michael Cheika a few pointers. And perhaps it’s a small encouragement that their two defeats at home this season have been to London Irish.
“Last Saturday’s game and this game are our two biggest games of the season, so we will put everything into next week,” said O’Kelly, who believes the Thomond Park summit meeting in front of a 26,000 crowd can only be good preparation for Sunday.
“Yeah, an arena like that, how could it not? It was a massive game there for us. We’re ‘under’ from it, but we know we’ve the ability to come back and I’m very proud of the guys for what Leinster did (in Thomond Park). It didn’t work out, but we gave it everything we had, and that’s what it’s about. We have done that all season. We’re a tight group and we fully expect to have a massive performance.
“Whether or not we can have the composure which we lacked in that game (against Munster) remains to be seen. I think that was a major thing. We scored a great try, in saying that, but we need more of that. We need to have that composure. In the first half we didn’t have it; the set-piece let us down. So if we can bring that to next week, I think certainly we can be in there in the mix.”
In some respects, too, he believes, there’s nothing better than hoping straight back on the bike after a fall. “I think so, absolutely. We have to use this as well, and certainly if we beat Harlequins the week after it would make up for it. Win or lose, playing against Munster you can learn from it.”
The hoped-for and anticipated return of Brian O’Driscoll should be a huge positive, psychologically as much as to Leinster’s attacking game and defence in that outside centre channel, not to mention the discernible loss of his general leadership last Saturday.
“But Brian O’Driscoll and Luke Fitzgerald won’t make an ounce of difference if you don’t have your set-piece,” counters O’Kelly. “The front five are your engine room, and if we don’t operate right he’s not going to do anything for you off poor ball.
“His leadership is huge, but he returned to us last week and was with us all last week. He was a late drop-out, and Lukey as well. We were hoping they would be involved, but they weren’t. But they’ll certainly be involved next weekend, in some way or other.”
O’Kelly appreciates the scale of the task facing the Ospreys next Sunday against Munster, but warned that they, too, could be inspired by the occasion. “If Ospreys score two tries the crowd would suddenly be very quiet. I enjoyed the crowd. Whether or not it was a 10-point game (because of the crowd) is a different matter. It’s hard to say how much they’re worth. It adds to the day and you’d expect the Ospreys to be flying. It would be a different matter if you were playing in Murrayfield and there were 2,000 people there. It’s almost harder to get up for that than when you’ve got 25,000 people screaming. Then there’s no worries about getting up for the game.
“What it does is it adds to the game, whatever about the difference it makes, except that Munster are more used to it and then, of course, when Munster get ahead the crowd almost feels like an extra player against you. But at this stage I’m well used to it, y’know.”
More than most, more than most.
