James Lowe‘s interviews are a treat: colourful, bold and distinctive. While gentle coaxing is required occasionally, his willingness to invest some of his personality – which generally involves a bit of slagging of team-mates – is always welcome.
On Saturday at the Aviva Stadium, Leinster will host the Northampton Saints for the second successive year in a Champions Cup semi-final. The Irish province won the meeting 12 months ago 20-17, and the game and headlines belonged to Lowe, who scored a hat-trick of tries.
Reacquainted with his achievement, he fobs it off by mentioning that he “ran about 12m” in total for the tries. Leinster led 20-3 before squeezing home in the end. The coaches and players have reviewed the footage of the game, individuals keen to pick out nuggets relevant to their sphere of interest.
Leinster vs Northampton - the comeback final revisited
For Lowe that centred on the Saints kicking game and especially the steepling box-kicks of scrumhalf Alex Mitchell. In a field sport nothing operates in isolation, something that Lowe touches on when discussing the team’s attacking potency in the two recent European knockout matches, the wins over Harlequins (62-0) and Glasgow Warriors (52-0).
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“It’s the old cliche of doubling down on the basics and taking the easiest space that we can,” he says.
“Those scorelines may look nice, but it comes off the back of a lot of hard work and defensive pressure getting us the ball ... We came up against Harlequins who are a very attack-minded team. We thought that if we could take a lot of that away from them, then we could maybe catch them on the hop and, fortunately, we were able to do that at Croke Park.
“To back that up again six days later against another very attack-minded team in Glasgow was awesome. It is a different beast with a Northampton team that is probably more pragmatic, kicks a lot more and tries to force you into exit cycles.
“They’ve got kickers across the pitch.”
Lowe pays tribute to the new ideas and shape that backs’ coach Tyler Bleyendaal has brought in his first season, but also how Jordie Barrett has been a catalyst in helping to facilitate that process.
“It’s always good when you get a new coach and then [to have] someone of Jordie’s experience who has played under Tyler in New Zealand because you have someone trying to preach to a lot of bodies across the field, and you also have a player who played in the system,” says Lowe.
“So, if you don’t quite understand it upstairs, then you also have someone on the ground who can [talk about] it or show it in a different way on the pitch, and not just on video afterwards. It’s not that we didn’t play expansive rugby, but it’s just that we don’t need our shape the whole time to get the ball to space.
“You talked about RG [Snyman], the big freak. He’s 6ft 8ins or taller, he runs like the wind and every time he gets the ball, everyone is looking for the offload because he doesn’t want to die with it. They have been great additions to Leinster and Irish rugby.”
Lowe has also enjoyed watching the progression of another team-mate, outhalf Sam Prendergast, from academy prospect to 22-year-old first-choice pivot.
“Sammy’s come a long way ... He just tries things, and they come off because he does it every day at training.”
Lowe continues as if discussing a younger brother. “It’s so annoying because you just don’t know what’s going to happen, but then there’s a brilliance in that as well. It’s kind of a beautiful thing to watch.
“You see, every year there’s someone coming through or a group of people coming through [from the academy] and you hope that they figure it out. Some people do and some people don’t; that’s the unfortunate nature of the beast. And Sammy’s figured it out.”
Lowe points to how Prendergast has taken his chance with Leinster and then Ireland, how, along with Jack Crowley in the national squad, the two young outhalves drove each other and the team on.
“Those two worked well together during the Six Nations and Sammy has come back here and he’s absolutely flourished, grabbed the bull by the horns and he’s starting to tell people what to do, which is always nice to see in a young fellah.
“He has a massive influence on a game. I remember against England, he said everyone was just chirping at him the whole time, just trying to get into his head. He’s pretty cool, calm and collected.”
Lowe notes the fact that while ‘Quins and Glasgow also tried to get into his head, they didn’t succeed.
Three Champions Cup final defeats have inspired a certain narrative around Leinster, one that won’t go away until they’re standing behind a winners’ billboard clutching silverware. Lowe admits: “Are we going to hopefully get this year? Fingers crossed, I’d love to be in another final and hopefully get another chance because we’re knocking on the door and it’s going to open eventually.”
