SWINGING FROM the hip was a phrase in danger of being worn out yesterday at Leinster’s training centre in Riverview, Clonskeagh. A desperate London Irish team that needs to somehow procure five points and confine Leinster to zero in Twickenham will, we imagined, come into the match with little to lose and, as it were, swinging from the hip.

Leinster’s backs coach Alan Gaffney has suffered anxious moments with some of the best coaches in the world. He’s a man not to let rash thoughts present themselves as gospel. Gaffney believes London Irish coach Toby Booth, despite the grim look of the Pool Six table from their viewpoint, will firstly look for team performance and some sort of platform before his team try to kick the match ajar into some kind of open-styled lottery. Leinster aren’t looking for a game of sevens rugby to materialise in London.

“We are looking at the game in a totally positive manner, to win. We’ll go out and play rugby. We won’t get into a game of sevens with them but we are very happy to play a very entertaining brand of rugby,” said Gaffney.

“That’s what we intend to do. How they approach it, I don’t know but I think Toby (Booth) has been around the block long enough to understand they can’t go out and say we have to score four tries. You can’t put the cart before the horse. I think he’ll say to his players we have to win the game first; what happens after that happens.”

There is another aspect to Leinster and that is in not feeling the game should be a dull litany of long kicks and endless mauling, although the estimated 7,000-plus fans expected to make the trip would probably concede the primacy of substance over style once Leinster secure a quarter-final place. The team also knows that when needs be they can play a furious, limited game as they did in the Heineken Cup final against Leicester last season. But with the quality of players Gaffney and Michael Cheika have at their disposal, they are more genetically disposed to a game that can breathe a little.

The initial 25-man squad is unchanged from the one that humbled Brive last weekend, while injured parties CJ van der Linde and Jonathan Sexton, and Shane Jennings, who returned from suspension, all came through with no health issues. Another consideration yesterday was that being beaten by London at the RDS in the opening match still rankles.

“We want to win for obvious reasons but not only because of the table – and this is not being said in a nasty way – but we owe them one,” said Gaffney. “The boys know it. They were disappointed at what happened at the RDS. That’s not taking anything away from Irish. They deserved to win that night . . . we are still disappointed by what happened that night and to be truthful, the boys would like to turn that around.”

To do that a more polished effort from the Brive display will be sought. On that most are agreed. The weather-hit New Year period might have been the cause rather than a fundamental malaise in the Leinster camp and there is an understated confidence that Leinster can go up the gears.

“Everyone had expectations Brive would come and lie down,” says Gaffney. “That didn’t go according to plan based on a lot of people’s expectations – not that we expected that to happen anyway. We were rusty . . . we just lost that ability to transfer and play the play. The basis of the play was there but we didn’t go on with the play. We started to do a little more in the second half. But we should be a lot better this weekend.”

London Irish have the odds stacked against them facing the champions with such a challenging try count to deliver along with a perfect defensive game. But as Munster have shown in battles from their glorious European past, what seem like lost causes often bring a clarity of purpose. These are games where experience tells. Leo Cullen, Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Gordon D’Arcy bring that in spades; even if the opposition swings from the hip.

LEINSTER SQUAD (v London Irish)

Forwards –L Cullen, J Fogarty, C Healy, J Heaslip, N Hine, B Jackman, S Jennings, R McCormack, K McLaughlin, S O'Brien, M O'Kelly, M Ross, CJ van der Linde, S Wright.

Backs –S Berne, G D'Arcy, G Dempsey, S Horgan, R Kearney, S Keogh, I Nacewa, P O'Donoghue, B O'Driscoll, E Reddan, J Sexton.