RUGBY: ADDING THE fear factor to Leinster's X-factor could be Joe Schmidt's ideal combination as Bath arrive to Aviva Stadium on Saturday. Sometimes imperfection is the ideal companion in anxious weeks like these.
When mistakes define a game as much as the outcome, Leinster’s place at the top of the food chain and the laws of nature are set aside. Winning at the Rec but leaving a couple of tries behind serves its own galvanising purpose as the Heineken Cup champions reload for the traditional Christmas experience in Lansdowne Road.
As recriminations go, the hides of Seán O’Brien and Rob Kearney are safe. Their inclinations to each make one wrong play at the wrong time shows, if anything, that they have a keen sense of festive spirit. For the errors are as frequent as Santa. Ripping into the Irish fullback and last year’s European Player of The Year is not on this week’s Leinster agenda.
“On one hand I don’t think anyone will look at those situations harder than those two,” says Eoin Reddan. “The other thing is that they are both in so much credit with us.
“A ball is kicked up in the air and everyone is running back, you expect Rob to catch. He catches the ball. Seán is making breaks every week creating tries. You don’t start getting on someone’s back when that happens in a game where it never normally happens and no one will look harder at eliminating those things. I don’t think anyone for one second is thinking about that. We do try to move on pretty quickly in games and that’s what happened.”
There are no injury concerns for Schmidt and the virus that last week left Steven Sykes floored and three kilos lighter over 24 hours has moved on. That Leinster emerged with the win has allowed them cut their confidence with a little fear.
From Reddan’s view point there is also experience in the equation. The bemused expression on the face of Springbok Francois Louw when he was yellow-carded near the end of the match for appearing to tackle Reddan from an offside position, was something of an invitation from the scrumhalf. While Reddan didn’t intentionally run into Bath’s best player, he didn’t stop himself from doing so. Leinster playing on the edge. Whatever next?
“I suppose he was standing right beside me, I mean, yeah, sometimes referees pick that up and sometimes they don’t,” he says. “On this occasion he had just given away the penalty just before that, which put us in front so he was always going to be under pressure. Maybe it’s common sense. I think in those situations you are always trying to look for any kind of edge and get it, away from home it was probably a good thing.
“You know, we had them under serious pressure and I think they kind of bottled it and gave away a few penalties towards the end.”
The mood then? Frustration. Satisfaction. Relief. Anticipation. In his never-ending battle with Isaac Boss a hard pragmatism has grown around Reddan. There is no destructive finger-pointing emerging from the Rec. Leinster move through the week chastened and wary of Bath’s strengths. They are sticking to their mantra.
“There are times when standards have to be kept up,” he says with communal zeal. “In general it’s up to the individual to lead by example. Getting your own ship in order is very important here.
“That’s kind of the mantra of it. Not too much happens for us to be getting on top of each other.
“Maybe it keeps the fear factor there, which is always important, to keep that mix of fear and confidence going into the weekend. Hopefully we’ll have that this weekend. We do respect Bath.
“They made it very hard for us when they held on to possession for 20, maybe 25 minutes in the first half and we were defending very hard and they were very comfortable doing that.”
