RUGBY: It may be early doors, but with Connacht and Ulster resurgent and Munster steady, it's a worry to see Joe Schmidt's men in the bottom half of the Magners League

THE RUGBY has been far from vintage, as referees, coaches and players alike grapple with changing interpretations and integrating new players with each game. But already Connacht’s early-season impetus and the arrival of the Italians has given the Magners League a welcome shot in the arm and some unexpected variety.

Coupled with Ulster’s resurgence and Munster’s steadiness, it leaves the latter two topping the table with the only 100 per cent records after just three rounds, with last season’s bottom pair, the Scarlets and Connacht, filling the other play-off spots.

Eric Elwood’s rejuvenated outfit, having removed the away-day monkey from their backs in Glasgow after their unlucky defeat in Llanelli (but for which they’d be topping the league) host Ulster in an intriguing season’s first “interpro” in Galway on Saturday.

Ulster, though they made heavy weather of putting away a dismal Edinburgh at home on Friday, tossing away countless opportunities before Darren Cave’s late try, do look like the real deal this season.

Munster are building momentum nicely too, despite last week’s injury triple-whammy, and the new arrivals appear to be good fits. Coupled with Wian du Preez’s return, the advent of an additional frontrow replacement suits them better than most, while Donncha Ryan is now beginning to look the favourite to partner Donncha O’Callaghan in the first of the autumn Tests against the Springboks.

Something of a forgotten man when injured from mid-February on last season, like many others though, missing out on the summer tour may well have been a blessing for him. Now 26, and with a good summer and pre-season behind him, it looks like all that raw talent is finally being fulfilled. When you analyse the requirements needed for a modern day lock – line-out/restart athleticism, ball-carrying, good defence and a huge work-rate – Ryan ticks all the boxes.

Meanwhile, of course, Leinster loiter in the bottom half after a poor capitulation in Treviso. Early days, of course, and the table has still to take any definitive shape. True to their coach’s avowed intention to mark their arrival in the League by earning respect at home, Treviso have won both of their first two games at the Stadio Monigo.

It’s also worth noting that of the first 18 matches, only three have produced away wins. So it is that five of the top six have had two of their three matches at home to date, and by extension five of the bottom six have been obliged to play two away.

Leinster are alongside the defending champions, the Ospreys, on four points with one home win and two away defeats.

It’s not unusual for there to be a bedding in process when a new coach comes in, all the more so when (as in Leinster’s case) two of the main back-up coaches, Kurt McQuilkin and Alan Gaffney, also move on. Even Michael Cheika did not turn up trees immediately, for although Leinster bounced back from an opening defeat away to the Ospreys with three successive wins, all of them were at home. This was followed by a heavy defeat away to Munster and, a fortnight on, a home European defeat to Bath.

Even Matt Williams, despite having already served as assistant to Mike Ruddock, didn’t re-invent the wheel immediately, and it was his second season before his methods and demands kicked in for Leinster to embark upon the 2001-02 season with a 15-match winning run into the New Year.

In Williams’ first campaign though, Leinster lost three of their first five games, all in the interprovincials and all away to the other three provinces, and then lost their Euro opener away to Edinburgh.

That said, it is the manner of Leinster’s defeats away to an under-strength Glasgow (since beaten at home by Connacht) and Treviso, which will cause considerable worry amongst Leinster supporters, players and coaches, not least Joe Schmidt himself.

Coupled with the way they also started brightly against Cardiff before falling away in the third quarter only to regain the initiative in the final quarter, Leinster have shown an unnerving habit of letting their intensity and concentration dip in the second half.

Schmidt and co would seemingly need to look again at their half-times, as it were. Their line-out malfunctioned badly in Italy and while the sticky conditions may have militated against a fluid running game, their back play was laboured. Most disconcerting of all, though, was the way they came off worse in the collisions and the apparent lack of leadership/accountability in the way they let the game slip away from them amid some bad decision-making.

There were other mitigating circumstances, not least the onus on Schmidt to selectively rest players. The additional travel to Italy is seemingly making those fixtures better suited to resting frontliners (witness Ulster resting Stephen Ferris for the trip to Aironi) and perhaps it also sent out a subconscious message to the players, as well as weakening their hand when, on top of Jonathan Sexton, their two main men, Brian O’Driscoll and Jamie Heaslip, were excused the trip.

With Shaun Berne also injured, Sexton’s loss has been acutely felt. Three three-pointers were tossed away at moments when they could have either pushed on or prompted a late comeback, while the inexperience of a 10-12-13 axis of Ian Madigan, Fergus McFadden and Eoin O’Malley is always more likely to be exposed away from home in a hostile atmosphere against fired-up opponents. It also seemed to burden Eoin Reddan’s performance.

Even so, with Edinburgh even worse placed on three defeats and one point along with Aironi, there’s already a hint of desperation about next Friday night’s meeting in a cavernous Murrayfield where historically, Leinster have run the whole gamut of emotions, a week before hosting Munster in a likely sell-out at the Aviva Stadium.

Leinster could conceivably go into that game a tad demoralised and more than 10 points adrift of their arch-rivals. They have already lost half as many matches as they did when topping the table two seasons ago, while they only lost five in topping the table last season. Admittedly, the Ospreys also secured a home semi-final with six defeats, while Munster somehow scraped into the play-offs with nine wins and nine defeats.

It’s hardly a crisis yet. But it would be a good time for the big guns to stand up, and for Leinster to deliver a win.