HEINEKEN CUP Brive 13 Leinster 36: SO MUCH for a rugby hotbed in the south of France. Save for the occasionally frenzied howls of derision for a couple of isolated bouts of Leinster ill-discipline, the home crowd were like lambs, and it says plenty for the control Leinster exerted that for the most part they were silenced.
This was a clever away performance, particularly on a potentially feisty evening in southern France. Leinster effectively took the sting out of the home team and quietened the crowd by recycling the ball tirelessly, thus monopolising territory and possession in the opening quarter.
Bernard Jackman’s darts were on the money and the addition of Malcolm O’Kelly, with Nathan Hines accommodated in the backrow, gave the hooker an abundance of well-used targets.
Hines’ selection at blindside was fully vindicated, for his big tackling, mauling work, offloading and general savvy from his time in action was a big plus for the holders.
Protecting this hard-won set-piece ball, they supported in greater numbers and closer to the ball-carrier, and hit the breakdown harder and lower. About five minutes of this preceded the first Jonathan Sexton penalty, which cancelled out Andy Goode’s opener. It looked like lung-bursting hard work so early into the game, and players were quick to avail of water at any break in play.
When obliged to defend through the phases, Leinster took the space against a Brive team that attacked a bit too laterally and they scarcely conceded an inch; the likes of Jamie Heaslip and Brian O’Driscoll, who oozed class in virtually everything he did, took a leaf out of the Irish system by leaving the line to snaffle danger.
The first of two well-crafted back-line tries was the one move of sustained quality. Sexton wrapped around O’Driscoll, and with Luke Fitzgerald fixing the defence with his straight, decoy line, Kearney came onto the ball with a superb inward line to score. It’s a move they’ve used before, and will again, but when executed this precisely it’s devilishly hard to defend.
That was off very slow ruck ball, so the way they held their depth, especially Kearney, made sense, though at times one ventured they could have taken quicker ball a little flatter such was the stand-offish nature of Brive’s defence. London Irish they ain’t.
The backs’ passing could also have been more precise at times.
Along with a second Sexton penalty, the 13-6 lead they took into the final stages of the first-half with the breeze didn’t seem especially fruitful. But the reward for that first-half dominance was probably reflected most of all in the final quarter as Brive wilted.
It helped that Brive’s kick-and-chase game was so poor, Shaun Perry especially overcooking his box-kicks while the chase was hardly worth the name. Thus, the classy Kearney and co could take high balls with relative ease, and often inside halfway.
Referee James Jones was also strong and authoritative, ignoring the entreaties of the crowd and the home team – indeed at one point in the first half he told them to shut it. The penalty count was 15-11 to Leinster, as Davit Kinchagishvili in particular incurred the Welsh official’s wrath for boring in on four occasions. Laurent Seigne’s shepherd’s crook probably saved the Georgian a yellow card.
The second of three Sexton penalties (he landed seven kicks from seven) either side of the interval was a 47-metre effort with the last kick of the first-half, and one imagines Seigne’s half-time team talk would have been fairly x-rated. Whether all of a predominantly English-speaking team would have understood it is a moot point.
Steve Thompson was full of bulldog belligerence, hitting rucks with swinging arms, and John Fogarty claimed he was welcomed into the fray at a scrum with the Brive hooker’s knee in the head. There were other scraps, and when O’Driscoll took exception to Goode stamping on Heaslip’s arm, a Brive player blindsided the Irish captain around the eye area, as the saying goes.
But save for when Goode sometimes took the ball sharply to the line and for some broken field running from the outside backs, Brive hadn’t much else to offer.
Twice the home team and crowd were briefly invited back into the game. First, when Sean O’Brien high-tackled Gerhard Vosloo and Fitzgerald late-shouldered Goode in the same play for the latter to land his second penalty; second, when Isa Nacewa was binned for a high tackle on Alexis Palisson.
Having seen out that 10 minutes without undue alarm, three times Leinster had chances to clear their lines but, having defied one attempted Brive maul, Vosloo scored something of a trademark close-range try.
Otherwise Leinster kept their cool, and responded to that score by chasing down Sexton’s hanging restart to manufacture another high-calibre try. With Reddan running to the openside, Jamie Heaslip passed straight off the base to Sexton, and quick hands by the outhalf, Fitzgerald and O’Driscoll worked an overlap for Nacewa.
He took an intelligent line infield before passing inside to McLaughlin who scored despite Jamie Noon’s best efforts.
McLaughlin roared in celebration of his first try for Leinster, and a second came with the last play of the game when the Brive scrum disintegrated.
Had one of several opportunities in the intervening dozen minutes been taken, almost certainly they’d have earned a bonus point. But Leinster would have bitten your arm off for their biggest win on French soil beforehand.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 4 mins: Goode pen 3-0; 10: Sexton pen 3-3; 15: Kearney try, Sexton con 3-10; 24: Sexton pen 3-13; 29: Goode pen 6-13; 34: Sexton pen 6-16; 40: Sexton pen 6-19 (half-time 6-19); 43: Sexton pen 6-22; 67: Vosloo try, Goode con 13-22; 68: McLaughlin try, Sexton con 13-29; 81: McLaughlin try, Berne con 13-36.
BRIVE: F Estebanez (capt); A Palisson, J Noon, L Mackay, V Waqaseduadua; A Goode, S Perry; D Kinchagishvili, S Thompson, P Barnard, C Short, D Browne, G Vosloo, V Forgues, A Claassen. Replacements: P Toderasc for Kinchagishvili, JP Pejoine for Perry (both 55 mins), P Idierer for Barnard (67 mins), R Cooke for Estebanez (70 mins). Not used: JP Bonrepaux, R Uys, S Azoulai, L Orquera.
LEINSTER: R Kearney; S Horgan, B O'Driscoll, L Fitzgerald, I Nacewa; J Sexton, E Reddan; C Healy, B Jackman, M Ross, L Cullen, M O'Kelly, N Hines, S O'Brien, J Heaslip. Replacements: J Fogarty for Jackman (47 mins), K McLaughlin for Cullen (54 mins), CJ van der Linde for Ross (61 mins), D Toner for Hines (70 mins), G D'Arcy for Horgan (72 mins), S Beirne for Sexton (77 mins). Not used: R McCormack, Simon Keogh. Sinbinned: Nacewa (49-59 mins).
Referee: James Jones(WRU).
