MAGNERS LEAGUE SEMI-FINAL Leinster 16 Munster 6:IN ANOTHER rendezvous of eye-popping physical intensity, with Jamie Heaslip yet again drawing the lines in the sand, Leinster's commitment to the breakdown and to making tackles for each other was savage and total. Also going after the game with more conviction, this was Leinster close to their Cheika-honed best.
When Ronan O’Gara pushed Munster ahead within six seconds of him kicking-off the second half following Niall Ronan’s quick-witted pass from Malcolm O’Kelly’s spillage, it revived memories of the opening to that 2006 Heineken Cup semi-final. What a difference four years makes.
As Leinster regrouped for the restart, with 39 minutes to play into the stiff breeze, they looked to be in something of a pickle. By the hour mark they’d scored 13 unanswered points and it could easily have been 17. In any event, the game was up.
Try though they might, Munster couldn’t match Leinster’s capacity to up a gear or two. There had been warnings before, of course, in the three previous meetings (which showed that far from being a one-off, form did matter after all) and in the response to Shane Horgan’s first-half sinbinning, when they won the ensuing 10 minutes 3-0.
Rob Kearney’s 44th-minute try was a stunning response, and underlined the current difference in quality between the sides. It was the product of a trademark wraparound by Jonathan Sexton, but the origins went much deeper than that.
There was the solid scrum (an area Leinster dominated all night with several different frontrow permutations) from which Eoin Reddan went blind to Isa Nacewa. There were the decoy runs off the recycle by O’Kelly and Shane Jennings which fixed defenders and helped Stanley Wright get them over the gain line. There was the second quick recycle and soft hands by Gordon D’Arcy which enabled Sexton to straighten through the gap created by Brian O’Driscoll’s slight obstruction on Jean de Villiers. And finally there was Sexton’s perfectly timed flat pass for Kearney to score the game’s only try – as he had done in Thomond Park seven weeks ago.
He even had Horgan, about the only Leinster player who didn’t make a tangible contribution to the score, on his outside. In their work-rate off the ball, the precision of the clearing out, the crispness of the passing, and the overall organisation and belief in what they were doing, Leinster showed why they’re a step above Munster now.
“C’mon on ye boys in blue,” reverberated around the RDS and there was a clinical, ruthlessness about Leinster’s intent to press it home too. Cian Healy ripped the ball from Damien Varley, the Leinster scrum cranked up the pressure some more, Sexton ran at O’Gara and CJ van der Linde went for a bit of afters on the deck with O’Gara. It was tough on Munster that good old James Jones, from his vantage point, deemed Marcus Horan’s retaliation the penalty offence but even after Sexton’s three-pointer Leinster went for the jugular again.
Heaslip, at the zenith of another towering, all-action display, made a stunning 60-metre surge when breaking off a lineout maul. Van der Linde rumbled up the middle and off another quick recycle Sexton made a half-break and offloaded to Healy, who was only denied a try when high tackled by Tomás O’Leary.
In fairness to O’Leary, it was an instinctive reaction to keep his team’s try-line intact, and his arm slid up Healy from the initial contact. One wondered about the effect on the mood in the stands which repeated video viewings prompted, but it should have been a penalty try rather than another three-pointer.
Not that it mattered, not with Heaslip doing his Rocky Elsom thing. From the kick-off he ploughed through some more tackles, then he ploughed through O’Gara – brave to a fault – and when Munster quickened things up by bringing on Peter Stringer, he forced a turnover when nabbing the scrumhalf.
Even then, such was Leinster’s unremitting focus they responded to Stringer’s quicker service by pushing up harder and wider out, and unwittingly allowing him space to run. Their scrum remained dominant, and with O’Kelly making light of Leo Cullen’s absence, their lineout was varied and supremely efficient, while Jennings led from the front, the sharp-as-nails Eoin Reddan continued his excellent form with a snappy performance and Sexton showed what Leinster missed in the previous five weeks.
If only, if only . . .
The first half had featured only three points apiece, but the security and strength under the high ball of the Leinster back three – and the outstanding Kearney in particular – had kept Munster’s best efforts at bay. And while the last quarter was scoreless – Lifeimi Mafi making a superb tackle on O’Driscoll, Richard Strauss doing likewise to stop Keith Earls from breaking away – it was still compelling viewing. This was rugby, not basketball.
Even Leinster’s selective use of the bench made more impact, and consider that Mike Ross, Stephen Keogh, Rhys Ruddock and Shaun Berne didn’t even make the bench. By contrast, Munster looked battered and careworn by the end. For all their undoubted physical willingness, their set-pieces again didn’t function to their best.
They still had more ball and territory in the first half and final quarter. Each of their full-strength backline had individual cuts, but that was the problem, it was too individualised.
They didn’t have the same work-rate off the ball or crispness in depth, running lines and passing. Save for Earls breaking Sexton’s tackle in the first half and his late break-out, as is their lot of late, they were invariably enveloped in blue.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 18 mins:Sexton pen 3-0; 29: O'Gara pen 3-3; (half-time 3-3); 41: O'Gara drop goal 3-6; 44: Kearney try, Sexton con 10-6; 50: Sexton pen 13-6; 58: Sexton pen 16-6.
LEINSTER:R Kearney; S Horgan, B O'Driscoll, G D'Arcy, I Nacewa; J Sexton, E Reddan; C Healy, J Fogarty, S Wright, N Hines, M O'Kelly, K McLaughlin, S Jennings (capt), J Heaslip. Replacements: CJ van der Linde for Wright (46 mins), R Strauss for Fogarty (72 mins), Wright for Healy (74 mins), T Hogan for Hines (79 mins). Not used: S O'Brien, P O'Donohoe, F McFadden, G Dempsey.
MUNSTER: P Warwick; D Howlett, K Earls, J de Villiers, L Mafi; R O'Gara, T O'Leary; M Horan, D Varley, J Hayes; D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll; A Quinlan, N Ronan, N Williams. Replacements: D Wallace for Williams (53 mins), Dave Ryan for Hayes (56 mins), D Hurley for de Villiers (60 mins), J Coughlan for Ronan (61 mins), P Stringer for O'Leary (65 mins). Not used: J Flannery, S Deasy.
Referee: Nigel Owens(WRU).
