Leinster don't need any lessons in the 'dark arts', according to Tania Rosser, but their discipline must improve if they are to beat Munster in the final of the Vodafone Women’s Interprovincial Championship on Saturday.
Having qualified thanks to a 26-19 victory over the defending champions on Saturday in Donnybrook, Leinster will make the return trip to Musgrave Park next weekend.
After losing to Connacht, when they had Aoife Wafer sin-binned, on the opening day of the competition, Rosser’s side had three players – Aoife Dalton, Ruth Campbell and Christy Haney – yellow-carded in their big win over Ulster.
And their third-round victory over Munster came despite two more periods with only 14 players on the pitch; Campbell again and Molly Boyne this time around.
The concessions have been made up of no-arm tackles, a late tackle, not retreating and slowing down the ball – a right smorgasbord of needless errors.
"We’re quite lucky, we’ve had Sean O'Brien [Leinster men’s coach] in throughout our whole campaign helping us out with coaching, we’ve got academy manager Simon Broughton," said Rosser in reply to a query about better discipline.
"We’ve got some experienced players in there as well.
"I don’t think we need the 'dark arts’ as such. We need to toughen up and be physical and stick to the laws.
"The laws are the laws and we need to stick to them, it’s as easy as that. They can’t go off that.
"We’re gonna need to have a big review tonight."
While Campbell (above) has taken two yellows for the team, Rosser backed the 19-year-old lock as one of the most exciting young players at the province.
"There’ll be a few hard words but you know one of them is a really young player," added the New Zealander, who won 58 Ireland caps.
"It’s her first time playing interprovincial, she hasn’t even played AIL yet so she’s just loses her head a little bit, she just needs a little more guidance and needs more patience
"She tries so hard that sometimes she gets caught off.
"Ruth’s only 19. She made the U20 squad this year, we brought her in from Barnhall.
"She hasn’t even played AIL, first division women's rugby yet but I’m really impressed with her already, she’s got one of the biggest engines in our team and is one of the most physical players. She doesn’t look big but she hits hard."
Saturday’s win at Energia Park was a first success over Munster since 2019 and brought the southern province’s 10-game winning streak to an end.
"It was massive, they needed to get that win, they needed to believe that they could beat Munster," said Rosser, who has no injury concerns but will find out on Thursday if two unnamed Ireland-contracted players are able to play a full part as they have their minutes managed ahead of the WXV3 series in Dubai in October.
"That’s the biggest thing for the younger ones at the moment, just to believe in themselves that it can be done.
"We went into that game knowing we had to win it to make the final and the girls did everything they needed to do.
"We’re really proud of the young ones, they stuck to the game plan, they came up physically and credit to them, I’m delighted they came through."
