It's not often a meeting with Matt O'Connor and Jamie Heaslip takes a turn towards doctrines and ideology. But the Leinster coach was in a discursive mood. Leinster have been criticised for losing when they are defeated and how they play when they win.
If O’Connor’s frame of mind could be read at all, it is that he’s finding himself in a lose-lose situation. Attacking rugby and Leinster’s form have been pejoratively tossed at him in recent weeks.
“As a player, I just want to win. I couldn’t care less,” says Heaslip perfectly capturing O’Connor’s view.
The side have not been winning many beauty contests. But then neither the Leinster captain nor the coach see aesthetics as part of their job description and a winning ugly philosophy will do just fine against Harlequins.
“Just a question for you blokes,” says O’Connor. “How do you guys categorise form? Is it winning games, is it scoring tries? We’ve scored the most tries in the League. I’m asking the question. What’s form to you guys? Because you ask about it a lot.
“The five seasons I was at Leicester we scored the most tries in the Premiership hands down in four of those years. I want to play with the ball in hand. Our philosophy is finding a competitive advantage against the opposition to win the game. That’s our style of rugby.”
Cold pragmatism
O’Connor has a point but it’s also the prerogative of Leinster fans to expect the team to play in a certain way. The fans will gladly take cold pragmatism once points and glory come with it but the entertainment side of the game might demand more than that.
While it’s probably no week to go into conclave about the brand of rugby Leinster are expected to play, the issue is now a live one. The Stoop last time out was no canvas for expression or verve.
It took just two kicks from Felipe Contepomi in a slog-fest. "I'll punch you and you punch me and we'll see who falls over first," is how Heaslip describes it. No elegance to the game but an adorable 6-5 outcome and the beginning of a 2009 European Cup winning run.
“The aesthetics of it are largely irrelevant,” says O’Connor. “We need to go to the Stoop with a plan to get a result. We need to win the game.
“Away from home in Europe, you’ve got to make sure your discipline is good, you’ve got to make sure your set-piece is good. You’ve got to make sure you look after the ball. If you deliver those things you manage the scoreboard, you manage field position, you give yourself every chance.”
In the coach’s world of make do from week to week, it’s difficult, he says, to hold on to a rugby philosophy too tightly because the group of players change so often. The internationals are back after a month with Joe Schmidt and as Heaslip put it “getting the Irish calls out of my head and getting on the Leinster page”. But he and the others will shortly be gone again as the Six Nations approaches.
“The biggest issue here and it’s been well documented, is that you’re changing 10 blokes every week so that competitive advantage changes every week,” explains O’Connor. “It’s absolutely flawed to have a philosophy of rugby when you have that turnover of bodies.
Zinging the ball
“I think there needs to be an understanding of the dynamics of the modern game,” he adds. “Five or six years ago Leinster were playing a tremendous brand of rugby with Guy Easterby at the helm, zinging the ball around. What were the press saying then? Ladyboys. Soft. Bladdy, bladdy, blah . . . ”
Heaslip was also asked about drugtaking in rugby but believes that the game is being well policed. The Leinster captain said that there are drug testers regularly taking samples from players and that he has been tested many times at the Leinster training ground and in his home.
“I think the processes that are in place work,” he said. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been tested. Blood. Urine I do it all. Plenty of times. They call to the house. Call here . . . ”
