MAGNERS LEAGUE CHRIS WHITAKER INTERVIEW: Gerry Thornleyhears from the scrumhalf charged with getting the best out of a brilliant back line

A MODEST, unassuming, soft-spoken and polite World Cup winner. At times you wonder if Chris Whitaker really is Australian. If the truth be told, the Aussies in the Irish rugby collective have generally had a positive impact wherever they've pitched up, but Whitaker is different in at least one respect: he doesn't bleat on about the weather.

He reasons that he and his wife, Alison, didn't come for the sunshine; which is just as well. And as a familial experience, the timing of his arrival with Leinster two years ago was perfect. With Jasmine (now five) and Lily Rose (six), they settled in seamlessly.

"I've loved it," he asserts. "Honestly, honestly. You talk to my wife or my kids and they love it. The whole experience, Leinster getting better, living in Europe - it's just totally different.

"It's something we just jumped right into. It helps having kids as well because straight away you become involved in the community and you have friends outside of rugby. It's all good."

They continue to soak up Ireland and Europe like sponges. Coming from a country where it took four hours just to fly from Sydney to Brisbane, they usually approach a weekend off by hopping on a plane.

Last summer they travelled around a dozen Greek islands. A year earlier they spent five weeks driving and pitching up in a mobile around France, surfing and visiting vineyards. They've taken in Salzburg in Austria, Rome, Copenhagen and Oslo. Alison took the kids to Disneyland in Paris a couple of weeks ago. They've been to the west coast, Belfast and Dunmore East in exploring Ireland.

Whitaker had achieved most of what he could achieve in Australia and has been invigorated by the new challenge, playing in new competitions as well as watching the Six Nations. Having watched the 1991 World Cup in the old Twickenham, Lansdowne Road and Murrayfield, he says: "In those old grounds rugby is at its best."

He grew up in Sydney, where rugby and surfing were integral to the Whitakers' outdoor way of life. His elder brother Ben heads the high performance unit in the Australian Rugby Union, and their younger sibling Tom is an international surfing champion. But Australia, he concedes with a smile, isn't so much a bubble as "a huge bubble".

When Les Kiss was considering taking up the role of Irish defence coach he rang Whitaker.

"I said, 'Mate, the Six Nations. You would not believe how big it is and the following it has. Get over here.' And you don't realise it unless you've been over here to experience it."

At 33, he's taking it year by year now, though not because he isn't enjoying it: "I was just thinking the other day how much I'm loving playing rugby, probably more so than in my last five or six years in Australia.

I suppose because I'm closer to getting a proper job (he has a degree in construction management). But also the set-up here, the players and coaches we've got.

"Everything's moved on really nicely. The facilities are getting better. It just adds to more excitement each year."

Amid the array of gamebreakers and instinctive players in Leinster's star-studded back line, "Whits" is the safe hand on the tiller. He's the calming influence, à la their erstwhile Kiwi outhalf David Holwell.

Recalling how he was sidelined from the 20th minute of the defeat away to Toulouse for a further nine-game spell last season that also took in those Euro losses away to Edinburgh and Leicester, you sense it is imperative for Leinster that Whitaker - as much as any one player - stay healthy this season.

He has been one of the few ever-presents in the early-season rotation but, typical of such a selfless team player, he looks upon his own form in the context of the team, and to this extent he feels he and the team have been a little patchy to date.

"I don't think the backs are getting enough ball, in terms of good quality ball, and that's something I've got to work on for sure. I mean when you've got a back line like we've got you want them going at the opposition as much as you can, and I don't think I've done that enough so far this year."

Toward the end of last season and the outset of this, the squad have talked about the increasingly overt reliance on their forwards and getting the balance right this season. Already there are encouraging signs. One of the six tries scored against Edinburgh was a virtuoso setpiece effort through the backs off a lineout.

Yet it has become increasingly hard to open up modern-day defences without the kind of quick, go-forward ball Whitaker is talking about.

"You saw Ospreys last week; there were a couple of balls I gave to Isa (Nacewa) and he had no option but to step back inside because they just blitzed so quickly. And that's my job - to get the ball going forward before I give it to him."

It's not surprising to hear Whitaker assume this responsibility, for more than most scrumhalves if he senses a pass to his outhalf or first receiver might have a red cross attached, he'll swivel, take it into contact and try to set it up instead.

As encouraged as he is by the arrival of Nacewa, Rocky Elsom and CJ van der Linde, he's equally enthused by the emergence of young products off Leinster's own assembly line, such as Jonathan Sexton, Seán O'Brien, Cian Healy and Devin Toner.

"I was saying to someone the other day he (Toner) reminded me of a great Dane puppy. He couldn't control his arms and legs; he was so big. But this year he has been phenomenal."

All of which adds to the heightened, almost dangerously giddy, expectations this season, with a fair few bets seeing Leinster's odds for the Heineken Cup tumble from around 16 to 1 to 10 to 1, not to mention crowds of around 15,000 for successive home games, and now a full house tomorrow.

"There's expectations outside but they're on the inside as well. We were disappointed last year in how we went, although winning the Magners League was an eye-opener for us, in that we can win competitions, and we can use it as a stepping stone."

It can only help, for imagine if Leinster had embarked upon this campaign after another anti-climactic near miss in the league.

All the old doubts about them, outside and, more significantly, within, would have remained: "Yeah, we would have been the Great White Shark, the Greg Norman of rugby."

On the back of impregnability at home, away form is the key, their form on the road last season propelling them to the league title yet costing them qualification from their European pool.

Acknowledging the need to pick up at least one away win and perhaps a couple of bonus points, Whitaker says, "Mentally, it's something you've got to come to terms with. I think our approach to the away games in the Magners League last season was definitely different from the year before.

"Ollie le Roux highlighted it. He said to us, 'We take our away games a bit too lightly, a little too jovially. We're going away to win games.' And it definitely helped."

They could always take a leaf out of Munster's Euro book, namely learning how to hang tough in matches away, and you put it to Whitaker that Munster's bonus point away to a rampant Clermont was as important as any of their home wins.

"There's going to be times when you have to win ugly, and not be adventurous. That's the big thing. Everybody wants to run with the ball and have a good time and look good doing it, and I suppose the crowd wants to see it too. But there's games when you just can't do it and being smart in games and learning how to control games is something we've spoken about.

"Actually we have spoken about the Munster-Clermont game last year when they hung in there and if you look at the Ospreys game we actually didn't play a whole lot of rugby, but we hung in there and trusted our defence."

Now come Munster themselves. It's as if Leinster's season has been programmed perfectly, even down to next week's trip to Connacht (albeit on a Sunday, thus affording them only a six-day turnaround) prior to the trip to Murrayfield for, arguably, the pivotal game of their season.

Whitaker tries to take a dispassionate view of tomorrow's game. "Everyone wants to win, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all.

"As long as we get better each week and show that we've got character, I think that's more important at this time of year than actually winning. It's very important how we play the game."

They know Munster will test them in every area of the pitch for 80 minutes: "They'll bring a fair bit of physicality and belief in themselves as well. That's one thing I admire about Munster. When the chips are down they still know they can hang in there and grind a win out."

Something he desperately wants Leinster to do before he's finished."I don't think the Leinster backs are getting enough ball . . . and that's something I've got to work on for sure. I mean when you've got a back line like we've got you want them going at the opposition . . .

Date Of Birth:Oct 19th, 1974

Birthplace:Sydney

School:Sydney Boys High School.

Height:1.78m (5ft 10in)

Weight:82kg (12st 12lb)

Position:Scrumhalf

Honours:Australia (31 caps, won 22, lost 9, including World Cups of 1999 and 2003)

Provinces:New South Wales Waratahs (captained them to 2005 Super 12 final). Leinster (39 games, 5 tries and 2008 Magners League title)