ON RUGBY/Gerry Thornley: It could have been a whole lot worse for Leinster had Brian O'Meara not landed that 80th-minute penalty against Cardiff last Friday night.
At least it gives them the buffer of knowing that a bonus point in Biarritz next Saturday would be sufficient to put them through to the last eight of the Heineken European Cup, on the proviso that Biarritz don't win and score four tries or more. That said, it's advantage Biarritz now.
It's not just that Biarritz looked impressive in their 15-0 defeat of Sale on Sunday, it's that Leinster are not playing particularly well. Not behind the pack at any rate.
Up front, their lineouts, mauls, scrums, and rucking were all highly proficient. Shane Byrne had his best game of the season, the ultra professional Keith Gleeson forced four turnovers in the tackle - one of which saved a try and probably the match - while Victor Costello had a return to form and a seemingly telepathic understanding with the barnstorming Eric Miller until his unfortunate departure. Miller will now miss Saturday's game.
In truth, Leinster had enough ball and field position to have put Cardiff away without undue bother. Leinster's problems emanate, of course, from their continuing outhalf jinx and the combined loss of Brian O'Driscoll and Denis Hickie. For such an accomplished footballer, O'Meara could offer more in general play while Matt Leek again created little for those around them.
Shane Horgan and Gordon D'Arcy are having to make something out of nothing while behind them Girvan Dempsey, who looks like he's either short of confidence or playing with an injury, is not offering a strike threat. In mitigation Leek did take his try well, after which he was handicapped by a bruised knee, and is a relatively inexperienced 23-year-old who doesn't have the all-court vision of a David Humphreys or Ronan O'Gara.
Once again Leinster's kicking game, as such, was deplorable. After Leek had found touch with his first kick, the malaise began with Dempsey missing four successive kicks to touch, Brendan Burke then missing another in the prelude to Cardiff coming back into the game at 17-3 down. Leek's three second-half kicks all went down the throat of Rhys Williams, while up-and-unders by Dempsey caught his team-mates offside or went out on the full.
Among other things it was Leinster's inability to execute "a drop goal play", compared to Sale's routine execution of a now standard endgame ploy through Charlie Hodgson, which effectively cost them victory at home to Sale three games ago.
Last Friday, Leinster didn't even try a drop goal, despite umpteen field positions in which to do so with the scores tied in the final quarter. As Jonny Wilkinson and England especially have shown with their well-rehearsed "drop goal plays", sometimes it's the only way left to win a game. Supposing Leinster are attacking with a couple of minutes left and trailing Biarritz next Saturday?
Christian Warner may not hugely improve Leinster's drop goal options or kicking game in general, but he brings more decision-making to the pivotal playmaking role, and seems to have a calming influence on those around him. He's also a more canny and daring distributor and is more likely to put his centres into gaps. He's also deceptively quick and more likely to provide a threat himself.
Regardless of the pain from his strained quad, for Leinster's sake Warner probably has to play this week, even if this has uncomfortable echoes of Nathan Spooner being obliged to do likewise in the quarter-final defeat away to Leicester two years ago.
Indeed, there are unnerving shades of three seasons ago, when Biarritz recovered from an opening-day beating against Leinster with a decisive 30-10 victory at home on the last weekend.
Again, it's Biarritz who now seem to be in better nick. They look a different team with Serge Betsen and shut out a Sale side admittedly without Charlie Hodgson on Sunday, while opportunistically taking their scores. Their maul is particularly potent and they have pace out wide.
When all the analysis is done into French teams' frail mentality away from home - ground familiarity, travel, hotels, food etc - perhaps the biggest is the persecution complexes induced by non-French speaking referees. Watching the excellent Alain Rolland referee Sunday's game, the thought occurred again that his presence does more than anything to erode those away-day doubts.
Curiously "homer" referees seemed to be less commonplace over the last two weekends, even if Giulio di Santos' last-minute penalty try against Perpignan which handed Celtic Warriors a home win on Friday night was excessive, even by this tournament's standards. That said, Perpignan's spoiling antics of recent times dims one's sympathies for them. You live by the sword . . .
It would also be remiss not to mention Alan Lewis's strong refereeing of the Agen-Northampton game in the hostile Stade Armandie, where the home side had lost only one of their previous 56 matches. Played in atrocious conditions this was probably the toughest game of the tournament to referee, but Lewis got all the key decisions right, including three yellow cards and the tightest of calls on Bruce Reihana's legitimate try.
Irish performance of the weekend though must surely go to Connacht. With the carrot of a two-legged semi-final in April, most probably against Harlequins, on offer in the Sportsground next Saturday, they are now four games away from qualifying for next season's European Cup.
Them's the rules. "The winner of the Parker Pen Challenge Cup will automatically qualify for the Heineken Cup 2004/2005 tournament." It will be interesting to see whether the IRFU try to manoeuvre their way out of that one, and if not, how they'll decide which of the big three miss out given they've no set guidelines in place.
Ulster have won the Celtic Cup and lead the Celtic League. Munster are well positioned to obtain a home European Cup quarter-final. Leinster have a massive game this Saturday. Maybe even bigger than it already looks. They're good enough to do it, but we'll find out what they're made of now.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
