When Leinster decided not to
appeal the three-week ban handed to prop Jack McGrath for stamping on Ulster's Rory Best, it seemed tailored to suit Ireland more than Leinster. The province could have appealed the ban but ran the risk of having it increased.
The province denied there was any national question involved, McGrath's foul ensured he would miss Leinster's remaining two European Champions Cup pool matches. But he would definitely be available again this week.
Joe Schmidt would have been pleased with Leinster's decision. At the very least it allows the loosehead prop to express his contrition this week and put it firmly behind him as a rite of passage sort of error.
From his point of view Leinster are through to the knockout phase in Europe and he is on the brink of adding to his 12 caps.
“It was one of those things and it’s water under the bridge now,” he says of the stamp on Best’s leg.
“It’s something that I should not have done. Myself and Rory have spoken about it and there’s no hard feelings. It was just one of those things and it’s completely forgotten about.
“I gave him a buzz just to apologise about it. Looking back on the incident, it was probably the wrong thing to do. It’s all gone by the wayside now.”
A fact of life in the interprovincial matches is that they are often unusually testy and many of the players meet each other shortly after for Ireland squad sessions.
McGrath stamped on a player he may very well scrum down beside in Rome for Ireland's first match in the Six Nations. Out of character or not those things need to be aired.
“There was no malice behind it,” explains McGrath. “I felt he was near the ball and I felt that by rucking on him a few times he might move away from the ball. The referee obviously thought it was a bit too much.
“If you keep thinking about what happened, it will end up dwelling on your mind. Then you get annoyed and you’re no use to anyone. So the best thing is to just get annoyed about it for the day and then just forget about it and move on.
“It’s definitely a learning curve. You’re learning all the time in rugby. It’s a mistake I hopefully will never make again. It’s a hard rap on the knuckles to take. There’s nothing you can really do when they sanction you for three weeks. I spoke to a few people when I got the ban and it was just a case of trying to delete it from my mind and focus on whatever positives I could.”
Positives
There are plenty of those on the prop’s horizon. He may be short of game-time but can harvest enough from before Christmas for his general “wellness”. The game against Saxons, you feel is a warm up for Rome. In that, few are in doubt.
The soundings on Cian Healy have also been too cautiously delivered to have any faith that his hamstring will be healed in the coming days and even then that he will jump straight into a Six Nations match.
“Obviously I started in the November Series,” he says.
“I started two games. You can look at it like that but then a couple of bad games and you’ve quality players behind you ready to take your spot.
"I think it's a good dynamic what's happening. There's Cian, myself, Killer [Dave Kilcoyne] and James Cronin, so there's four good players there fighting for one position."
Sold to the players as a trial, Friday’s match is Schmidt’s last look at his players under real stress conditions and against international players.
“Yeah,” says McGrath. “Its guys who need game-time and guys who still have to put their hands up. I think there is no better carrot.”
