Leinster 24; Lions 6
Leo Cullen’s Leinster are flying high but they were made to fight much harder than in recent games by a tough-tackling South African outfit who stubbornly held out to defy the eastern province a bonus-point fourth try at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.
Maybe that’s being picky when you consider that Leinster are still missing a number of key players due to injury and the rotation will, if nothing else, allow the Head Coach see what players are capable of stepping up to the front line if required.
Afterward the Leinster coach admitted: “With 20 minutes to go, you’d love to push on and get the bonus, but we’ve used a good few players, like 47 players, that’s a big chunk of players, a lot of young guys, some great experience over the past six weeks – hooker being the classic example.
“Four senior hookers out, the cohesion part is a challenge when you’re chopping and changing but it sets us up for the season is the thing. Overall we’re pleased. The Lions – the way the game played out was the way we’d talked about it during the week; making sure we don’t get frustrated. Making sure we don’t get impatient with the ball.
“We’re probably still forcing things a little bit and the Lions are very tenacious the way they defend. They scramble really hard and they’ll go aggressively at the ball.
“We turned over possession in their 22 on a few different occasions. It’s a win for them, their energy levels go up, we’re maybe going a little flat.
“But we stuck at it okay, I thought. We get the job done. We won by 18 points. It seems like a decent win but there’s lots within the game that we’ll reflect on,” he stressed.
And while the failure of a first bonus point in six outings may rankle, at the other end the fact that his defense wasn’t breached for a try over the 80 minutes will be a source of great satisfaction for all involved in the Leinster set up.
“That's the thing, the Lions are scoring plenty of tries,” he highlighted. “As the second half [goes on], you're looking out and the rain is there, that makes it a little bit more difficult for both teams and we managed to keep them relatively away from our end of the field.
“They are unbelievably tenacious and well-drilled in what they do. They're four wins from four going into the game so they're a bloody good team. Overall we're pleased to get a win. Your natural instinct is you want to get the maximum, but it wasn't to be today. We'll take the win, bag the four points, and it’s ‘move on’ for the international break,” he added.
Tries for Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris was followed by a penalty try right on full-time which gave the hosts a 118-point winning margin on the day.
It was a particularly good evening’s work by Sam Prendergast who played for an hour and kicked two conversions and a penalty before preparing for the link-up with the Ireland squad this week. Of all the outhalves at Andy Farrell’s disposal, this guy’s ability to create and timing of the pass may see him become the long term successor to Johnny Sexton.
Leinster: H Keenan; A Osborne, H Cooney, R Henshaw, J Lowe; S Prendergast, L McGrath; M Milne, G McCarthy, R Slimani; RG Snyman, R Baird; M Deegan, Jvan der Flier, C Doris (capt) Replacements: S Smyth (for McCarthy, 79), A Porter (for Milne, 45), T Clarkson (for Slimani, 45), B Deeny (for Baird, 67), J Culhane (for Deegan, 69), C Foley (for McGrath, 63), R Byrne (for Prendergast, 63), C Tector (for Henshaw, 79)
