MAGNERS LEAGUE Leinster 17 Connacht 14:IT MAY have started as Top v Bottom, and ultimately finished as such, but like the official attendance of 13,835, it scarcely looked it.
Connacht played most of the rugby and came within a whisker – almost literally – of causing the league’s biggest upset of the season. That outcome would not have flattered them remotely.
Facing into Good Friday’s summit meeting at Thomond Park and their home Heineken Cup quarter-final against Clermont seven days later, the European champions held their nerve to earn a fourth successive league win through Jonathan Sexton’s sweet, 40-metre drop goal seven minutes into injury time.
Mike Ross also gave Brett Wilkinson a torrid time in the scrums, and Rob Kearney, who was clearly put in a more positive frame of mind by Michael Cheika, made a welcome return to form.
The new diktat regarding the tackle helps counter-attacking full-backs, and, hitting the line at pace, Kearney looked something like his old self.
That pretty much concluded the good news for Leinster, though, and even Kearney’s rejuvenation at fullback came at a cost, for, in the continuing absence of Shane Horgan, it meant Girvan Dempsey was employed on the right wing.
Dempsey’s experience and reliability at his more natural fullback position was invaluable behind a fairly callow three-quarter line during the Six Nations hiatus, but here he was left exposed to the pace and quick feet of ex-Leinsterman Fionn Carr – by some distance the game’s most dangerous player, and arguably the best finisher in the league.
Admitting his side were lucky, and lamenting in particular their lack of physicality, Cheika said: “In no way am I going to sit here and say a win’s a win, that’s rubbish. That was mediocre at best and we set ourselves a higher standard.”
Connacht’s defensive work-rate and line-speed were sharper, and they largely won the collisions. They played the brighter rugby too, offloaded better, made more line-breaks and scored more tries.
But that they contrived to lose was also partially of their own making, for Miah Nikora and Ian Keatley (twice) missed with three drop goal attempts.
Rueing the missed drop goals and “try that wasn’t given”, coach Michael Bradley said: “They are big swings against a quality side. And then for them to be able to hit a 40-yard drop goal and win the game was a bit galling.”
Connacht’s ill-discipline again cost them dearly, most notably when Bernie Upton “speared” Eoin Reddan early on with Connacht 7-3 up and the referee playing an advantage to them as they mauled their way to within five metres of the line.
Later, though, influential captain Gavin Duffy was wrongly sinbinned for punching (at worst it was an open-handed push at Fergus McFadden after being pinned to the ground) at the behest of Simon McDowell.
Sexton’s penalty also levelled the scores.
Overall, referee Jerome Garces contributed to the game’s free-flowing nature, which was helped by two crisp lineouts and the superb service of two classy scrum-halves in Reddan and Frank Murphy. Indeed, Murphy – full of inventiveness and sharp as a tack – was probably the game’s classiest player.
However, the Frenchman’s penalty count of 15-6 in Leinster’s favour (including six shots at goal to none), looked unfair. For example, when Connacht were twice penalised for not retreating from up-and-unders into the wind (even though Murphy clearly retreated), the same yardstick had not been applied to Leinster off a box kick by Reddan.
As well as at least three baffling penalties against the westerners, the referee and his assistants also failed to penalise Isa Nacewa for landing on Brian Tuohy when he gathered on the ground and Leo Cullen for a blatant offside inside the 22.
Eventually the penalty count had to tell.
Initially, though, playing with the wind, Connacht set the tone. Murphy had already cleverly kept the move alive with a one-handed pass off the deck and, after the ever-lively Johnny O’Connor had set it up, Murphy ran laterally and picked out Carr with a double skip pass to beat Leinster’s narrow defence.
Not only did Carr veer inside Dempsey, he left Kearney for dead too for a stunning finish.
Carr struck again when Leinster moved the ball wide into the wind, dispossessing Dempsey and offloading to Nikora before supporting the outhalf to take the scoring-pass inside. This was his seventh league try to go with seven in the Challenge Cup, and his 25th competitive try for Connacht.
Kearney brought Leinster back into the game. The origins were actually a rare mistimed Leinster lineout, with Sexton picking off John Fogarty’s throw off a favourable bounce. Shane Jennings set it up and Kearney hit the line at pace off Shaun Berne’s pass to sell Tuohy a dummy which the Connacht winger bought a little too easily.
Gradually Sexton brought them level, albeit with three from seven kicks overall in what were difficult conditions.
That said, though still down to 14 men, Murphy again cleverly released Carr up the line and from his pass inside Seán Cronin – at the high point of a lively cameo in which he and Jamie Hagan also improved the Connacht scrum – sped almost 40 metres to the line, only for the combined efforts of Dempsey, Kearney and Rhys Ruddock to deny him a try by no more than an inch or two.
Keatley compounded this by missing a drop goal – a proverbial sitter, even into the wind – before Sexton applied the coup de grace.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 2 mins:Carr try, Nikora con 0-7; 4: Sexton pen 3-7; 23: Carr try, Nikora con 3-14; 28: Kearney try 8-14; (half-time 8-14); 43: Sexton pen 11-14; 69: Sexton pen 14-14; 79: Sexton drop goal 17-14.
LEINSTER: R Kearney; G Dempsey, F McFadden, S Berne, I Nacewa; J Sexton, E Reddan; S Wright, J Fogarty, M Ross, L Cullen (capt), M O'Kelly, R Ruddock, S Jennings, Stephen Keogh. Replacements: P Ryan for Keogh (27-31 mins), CJ van der Linde for Ross (48 mins), B Jackman for Fogarty, D Toner for O'Kelly (both 64 mins), E O'Malley for Beirne (70 mins). Not used: P O'Donohoe, Simon Keogh.
CONNACHT: G Duffy (capt); B Tuohy, A Wynne, K Matthews, F Carr; M Nikora, F Murphy; B Wilkinson, A Flavin, R Morris, M McCarthy, B Upton, M McComish, J O'Connor, G Naoupu. Replacements: A Browne for Naoupu (31 mins), T Nathan for Matthews (half-time), S Cronin for Flavin, J Hagan for Morris, M Swift for McComish (all 56 mins), I Keatley for Nikora (65 mins). Not used: C O'Loughlin. Sinbinned: Duffy (68-78 mins).
Referee: J Garces(France).
