Leinster coach Gary Ella must have been impressed by the manner of his second string's blitz of Coventry in a pre-season friendly at Coundon Road last night.
The match was in safe keeping by the end of the first quarter when John McWeeney blazed over for two tries in three minutes to stretch Leinster's precarious two-point lead to 24-10.
The cohesiveness of the visitors must have been a shock to Coventry's system as they would have recognised few of the Leinster names, save those of halfbacks Christian Warner and Derek Hegarty and, possibly, McWeeney. The early onslaught coughed up tries for centre Gary Brown and outstanding openside Niall Ronan.
Coventry were hanging on through the bustling work of centre Mick Curtis, who burst over for a try in the fifth minute and outhalf Luke Smith's conversion and two subsequent penalties in the 14th and 35th minutes to leave the home side trailing 24-13 at the break.
Ella made numerous changes at the break and shortly afterwards. Still, there were more tries from replacements Brian Blaney and Brendan Burke and tight head Peter Coyle as Leinster dominated.
COVENTRY: J Baker; M Richards, T O'Shea; M Curtis, K Johnson, L Smith, R Christie; R Siveter, R Protherouth, M Cox, R Hurrell, R Stott, L Crofts, T Prosser-Shaw, S Brady.
LEINSTER: J Norton; G Brown, J Downey; J McWeeney, C Warner, D Hegarty, D Molloy; D Blaney, C Coyle, S Crawford, A Kearney, R Connolly, N Ronan, J Donovan. Replacements: E Byrne for Coyle; B Blaney for D Blaney; M Leek for Warner all h-t; C Winnis for Hegarty 50 mins; P Coyle for Molloy 62 mins; B Burke for McWeeney 67 mins; K Lewis for O'Shea 70 mins.
Referee: R Goodliffe (RFU).
• There are two injury concerns among the replacements for Leinster's under-21 game against Munster at Donnybrook tonight (6.30). A decision will be made on the availability of both Cillian O'Byrne and Simon Morrissey. Should they fail their places will be taken by Keith Taite and Philip de Barra.
LEINSTER XV: R McCarron (UCD), D Foran (DLSP), K Copeland (Blackrock College), C Sharpe (UCD), M Hewitt (Clontarf), M O'Neill (Dublin University), D Geraghty (UCD), J Wickham (Clontarf), Ollie Mc Cormac (St Mary's College), K Doyle (UCD), A Dunlop (Terenure College), O Cullen (Blackrock College), David Upton (Lansdowne), David O'Brien (Old Belvedere, capt), J Heaslip (Dublin University). Replacements from: D Gavin (Blackrock College), C O'Byrne (St Mary's College), K Taite (DLSP), D Hayes (Dublin University), R White (Dublin University), S Gibney (St Mary's College), S Morrissey (UCD), Philip de Barra (DLSP), Andrew Murphy (Dublin University).
