Connacht 6 Leinster 18:SOMETIMES in rugby, as in life, you don't get what you deserve. Few teams have expended so much energy for so little as Connacht did at the Sportsground on Saturday night.
They’d worked and tackled their socks off against a more talented force to trail by just five with time up. When a losing bonus point was invented, an effort like this would have been the idea behind it.
So when they began forcing passes through eight phases from inside their 10-metre line, you admired and understood their ambition, but also feared for them, for they had never looked like breaching Leinster’s white wall.
Sure enough, Frank Murphy’s delayed pass was picked off by Dominic Ryan for a try. Connacht may as well have lost 60-0.
One wouldn’t have wanted to swap places with Murphy in the dressing-room.
“I can’t fault the effort and the endeavour – there were long periods when we didn’t have the ball and we defended valiantly again,” said an unforgiving coach Eric Elwood. “A part of you says, yeah, you want to try and win the game, but in a close game like that I just think maybe you take the (bonus) point and move on. To get completely nothing for all your efforts is disappointing.”
He’s probably right, coaches usually are. Yet, as a player, in that moment Elwood might well have done the same. Players instinctively play to win, particularly after nearly striking from deep moments beforehand and when wanting to send the majority in a 4,582 attendance off into the Galway night air delirious.
Instead, after a second pointless outing in a row, they head off to a Treviso side who rested 11 players against Munster as they target Connacht next Saturday in the Stadio Monigo.
“We’ve got a huge challenge next week because, as you saw from the team they picked last night, they’ll be waiting for us in the long grass, stacked with their full team. It’s going to be another huge challenge for us on the road.”
Leinster merited this fourth win in a row, and their first victory here in three years, thereby leapfrogging Connacht. They had marginally the better scrum and the better lineout ball. They controlled possession and territory for large tracts and had more individual menace. But Connacht withstood the kitchen sink treatment.
A “delighted” coach Joe Schmidt said Leinster deserved to win while Connacht deserved a bonus point. “Connacht are a scrambling, difficult team to get on top of and I think Eric is doing a great job with them.”
Coming from two national stadiums and three big occasions to what has been their “graveyard”, Schmidt said “this was every bit as tough, to be honest. I really liked the way we kept our composure at the end of the game, and kept them in their own territory pretty well.”
Both sides were willing to go through the phases but defences again dominated, and in three Irish derbies to date there has been the grand total of two tries – both by Leinster.
Little blame could be attached to George Clancy, a good referee who was consistent here.
If he allowed any largesse in the collisions it was in permitting the tackled player to hold on for a tad. Clancy, who spent a chunk of the summer in the Southern Hemisphere, was particularly harsh on players going off their feet, and seeing Cian Healy, Jamie Heaslip and Leo Cullen fall into that category will have unnerved the watching Irish management.
Leinster’s defensive line speed was sharper, and Ian Keatley perhaps could have emulated Jonathan Sexton by taking the ball flatter. Connacht’s defence – a bit too inclined to absorb but immensely disciplined – kept them in the game. They tackled accurately, read offloads and rolled away quickly while never over-committing and thus keeping their numbers.
Augmenting Johnny O’Connor, Ray Ofisa and John Muldoon was lock Michael Swift. Operating more or less in what’s become known as Pillar Two, few defenders have resembled a pillar quite like Swift, for it was as if Leinster were running into concrete.
Recognising the aerial threat of the lively Shane Horgan, Connacht moved Darragh Fanning across to the left wing for reverse restarts, and when Leinster went through the phases they positioned Gavin Duffy there when Sexton eventually went to the air.
The only try of the match, tellingly, was a set-piece move. Isaac Boss took quick, off-the-top lineout ball from Leo Cullen to arc through a gap – created in part by Shane Jennings obstructing Seán Cronin at the tail – and fire out a wondrous pass for Isa Nacewa to score his third try of the campaign.
Nearing half-time O’Connor, Cronin, Fionn Carr and Ofisa carried hard for Cullen to concede what seemed a routine three-pointer. Keatley, with the best kicking ratio in the league, pushed this one inches wide instead of sending Connacht into the lead at half-time.
Instead, they trailed all the way to that fateful finish when Sexton’s sliding, football tackle denied Cronin and co an equalising try after a clever blindside move, and a scrum went unrewarded.
They then over-played their hand. For all Elwood’s misgivings, entirely understandable.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 14 mins: Nacewa try 0-5; 34: Keatley pen 3-5 (half-time); 49: Sexton pen 3-8; 55: Keatley pen 6-8; 64: Sexton pen 6-11; 81: Ryan try, Sexton con 6-18.
CONNACHT: G Duffy; D Fanning, N Ta’auso, K Matthews, F Carr; I Keatley, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, S Cronin, J Hagan, M Swift, M McCarthy, J O’Connor, R Ofisa, J Muldoon (capt). Replacements: E Taylor for O’Connor (17-25 mins, 70 mins), M Nikora for Keatley (60 mins), T Nathan for Fanning (70 mins). Not used: A Flavin, B Fa’amasuili, R Loughney, B Upton, C Willis.
LEINSTER: R Kearney; S Horgan, E O’Malley, F McFadden, I Nacewa; J Sexton, I Boss; C Healy, R Strauss, M Ross, L Cullen, D Toner, S O’Brien, S Jennings, J Heaslip (capt). Replacements: G D’Arcy for Kearney (46 mins), N Hines for Cullen (59 mins), S Shawe for Ross (65 mins), D Ryan for Heaslip (70 mins), E Reddan for Boss (71 mins). Replacements: J Harris-Wright, H van der Merwe, A Conway.
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland).
