PRO 12 Treviso 18 Leinster 19:RELIEF AND exhaustion were the two main accompaniments for the Leinster team as they boarded the Dublin-bound flight from Treviso late last Saturday night. That, and the four points, of course. But how they left it late.
Pushed to the limit by a Treviso side hell-bent on reproducing their giant-killing act of two seasons ago, they looked to be finished when Fabio Semenzato’s 78th-minute try left the hosts leading 18-16 with time wasting away.
Cue a perfect drop off from Jonathan Sexton, an outstanding retrieval of the ball from Devin Toner, a couple of well-worked drives and a majestic drop-goal by Leinster’s outhalf, breaking Italian hearts on his return to action.
“Johnny is a quality player,” said Joe Schmidt of his prize asset. “He’s a cool customer and has a great attitude under pressure. He showed that in the final phase of play . . . He then finished it off with a drop goal. What more can you ask for!”
Before all that, Leinster were very much put through the ringer by a Treviso side who might well have been out of sight by the interval had they shown more composure when going for the kill during a one-sided first half.
Schmidt called it “fingers in the dyke” stuff as Leinster somehow kept the score down, a Robert Barbieri try and a penalty for Alberto Di Bernardo scant reward for Benetton’s dominance.
As has happened a moment of inspiration by Brian O’Driscoll turned the game on its head early in the second half. Cutting a hard line through the dense midfield traffic, he availed of a superb offload by Damien Browne to sucker-punch the Italians.
Still, a Leinster side containing seven players making their seasonal debuts were forced to dig deep for the remainder of the game, and they were positively out on their feet at the end of the 80.
“We wanted to get as many players back on the pitch as was possible, rather than dragging it out over a number of weeks,” was Schmidt’s explanation for phasing back so many players all at once.
“If I only put four in then I would have to put another four next week and another three the week after that. I was hoping for things to click tonight but maybe we need another couple of games together for that to happen, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.”
Some players didn’t quite make it to the end. Richard Strauss was stretchered off after what seemed a heavy concussion, and will miss next week’s encounter against Edinburgh as a result. By the end of it all, he wasn’t the only one seeing stars.
“It certainly wasn’t easy out there tonight,” said captain Jamie Heaslip. “There were times out there tonight when we really struggled to keep up with the pace. Treviso threw everything at us and we were really blowing.
“Personally, I felt as if I had been hit by a double decker bus. I think I’ll be asleep long before we reach the airport. It was that tough.”
If the endgame was a welcome shot in the arm for Leinster, it was a bitter pill for Treviso to swallow, and especially given events earlier in the day when former headman Amerino Zatta was overlooked in the FIR Presidency election.
Some now fear that Benetton will pull their sponsorship deal at the end of next season, as they did last year with both the local volleyball and basketball teams.
From a financial point of view, any such change would could have serious ramifications for the the Italian standard-bearers’ future participation at the top table.
TREVISO: L McLean; E Gori, T Benvenuti, A Sgarbi, L Nitoglia; A Di Bernardo, T Botes; A De Marchi, L Ghiraldini, I Fernandez-Rouyet; F Minto, C Van Zyl (capt); S Favaro, A Zanni, R Barbieri. Replacements: V Bernabò for Van Zyl (45 mins), K Burton for Di Bernardo, F Sbaraglini for L Ghiraldini (both 55 mins), M Rizzo for De Marchi, L Cittadini for Fernandez-Rouyet (both 60 mins), F Semenzato for Nitoglia (70 mins), D Budd for Favaro (75 mins)
LEINSTER: I Madigan ; A Conway, B O'Driscoll, F McFadden, F Carr; J Sexton, E Reddan; H van der Merwe, R Strauss, M Ross; D Browne, D Toner; K McLaughlin, S Jennings, J Heaslip (capt). Replacements: I Nacewa for Madigan (41 mins), C Healy for van der Merwe, J Hagan for Ross (both 60 mins), S Cronin for Strauss, L Cullen for Brown (both 63 mins), J Cooney for Reddan (69 mins).
Referee: I Davies(WRU).
