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Lions loss inflates importance of next Leinster outing against Stormers

Updated / Tuesday, 23 Apr 2024 09:49
'The Lions didn't have a magic formula to beat Leinster'
'The Lions didn't have a magic formula to beat Leinster'

It was third time lucky for the Emirates Lions as they got their first win over Leinster last weekend in Johannesburg.

All three of the other Irish provinces won their games, on the rare occasion that Leinster were the only side to lose.

It was a much-changed Leinster team from the ones that faced off in two Champions Cup rounds, but they weren't without their experienced heads in South Africa.

Cian Healy, Ross Molony, Jason Jenkins, Max Deegan and Scott Penny all started in the pack. Those five players would be putting their case forward for starting positions in the province. Luke McGrath and Harry Byrne provided enough at half-back to control Leinster through an away game in South Africa.

Charlie Ngatai returned from injury and was a bright spark in a dull Leinster first-half attacking performance. Liam Turner and Ciaran Frawley also made good accounts of themselves on a day that Leinster were off their usual standards.

There were younger players littered throughout the team, such as Diarmuid Mangan who started at blindside flanker. However, this is the type of Leinster team that usually top the table in the URC, and that’s where they currently are still after the loss. They would have picked a team that the coaches had confidence in to get a result last weekend.

They were blitzed early on by the Lions, losing the restart with poor judgement from Jason Jenkins and within 60 seconds Leinster went behind.

When you’re playing away from home, with a couple of less experienced players, you’d like to receive that kick off with certainty, put your foot on the ball and exit with good clarity, building confidence and reducing the tension throughout the team. This was quite the opposite, with Morne van den Berg crossing for the opening try of the game.

Leinster’s attack started with a Lions turnover on first phase, Harry Byrne was caught carrying into contact when he would ordinarily like to play to someone else, like Andrew Osborne who showed up on his outside shoulder.

Richard Kriel won possession from the lineout and despite Deegan’s turnover in the subsequent lineout - the first of many for Deegan - the Lions were awarded a scrum which led to a penalty and another three points.

Leinster struggled to apply pressure with ball in hand. Their first quarter summed up by short possessions due to turnovers and strong defensive integrity from the Lions.

That same defensive integrity wasn’t evident on the other side. The Lions pushed two deep passes to get around Leinster, starting 60 metres from the Leinster line. Marius Louw was on the end of rapid interplay down the left hand touchline to take a 15-0 lead with only 12 minutes on the clock.

When the Nienaber defence was said to take 14 weeks to build integrity, these weren’t the players that got most of those reps together. The frontline players seemed to time that defence integrity pretty well against La Rochelle, but with different combinations in play for the trip to South Africa, the Lions were able to play deeper and get around the high line speed.

The Lions were strong with the basics of the game. They have an extremely powerful scrum that was used to win penalties against Leinster. They were rock solid in defence and very physical on the tackle line. They also exited very efficiently from their own half, racing into a 22-0 lead and extending that to 25 unanswered points at the start of the second half before Leinster got a score on the board through Ciarán Frawley.

Leinster nearly scored twice, once either side of half-time, but they were pulled back for a knock-on in the grounding and a forward pass from Cormac Foley before he touched down himself in an effective power play after half-time.

The area that Leinster will be most annoyed about is their return from 22-metre entries. They were slow out of the blocks but in the second quarter they mustered up seven entries and scoring opportunities.

It’s not too often you can say that Leinster visited the opposition 22 seven times and came away with no score. They didn’t score in the first half at all despite all those opportunities. And despite the defensive pressure from the Lions, Leinster’s lack of scoring was somewhat in their own hands. They had a crooked throw, a maul that was stopped and then held up over the line, they were tackled into touch, poached at the breakdown and knocked on when attacking into space.

In one way, your attack coach will be pleased that there were entries and opportunities created. In another, it’s highly frustrating to create so many chances and have nothing to show for it. It would be worse not to create them at all though.

Even towards the end of the game when you assumed that Leinster would finally get into their rhythm and make a push to close the gap, it was the Lions that finished the game stronger and scored twice in the last ten minutes.

This was always going to be a challenging tour for Leinster, resting many of their starters to battle on both fronts, having progressed to the semi-final of the Champions Cup yet again.

Glasgow have now narrowed the gap at the top of the table to just one point, making Leinster’s next game against the Stormers even more important. I’m sure they’d have targeted the Lions game as the easier of the two to pick up points and protect their lead in the table.

The Lions didn’t have a magic formula to beat Leinster. It obviously helped that there were mass changes for the Irish province. However, the Lions brought a serious intensity, accuracy and spark in attack, and solidarity in defence. They came out of the blocks so well that they didn’t have to force their game after that.

Munster will face that same challenge as they travel to Johannesburg off the back of a gutsy win against the Bulls.

The URC is wide open again with four rounds left before the play-offs.

Watch Ulster v Benetton in the URC on Friday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app

Watch Ireland v Scotland in the Women's Six Nations on Saturday from 2.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

Watch Dragons v Connacht in the URC on Saturday from 7.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player

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