The URC season kicked off on Friday night with a shock defeat as Leinster were taken apart by the Stormers in Cape Town.
Travelling to South Africa in the opening rounds is as tough a start as any, particularly when Leinster have been managing the disruption of their returning internationals and British & Irish Lions players.
However, Leinster's advantage over other teams in this league is their squad depth. They would have been travelling with confidence despite some of the less experienced players in their squad taking a bigger role on this tour.
They opted to leave experience on the bench. Will Connors and Max Deegan were most likely being used later in the game to inject some experience in the closing quarter. That didn’t work out in their favour as the game was already running away from them at that stage and they failed to make a meaningful impact.
Stormers were also missing a handful of internationals, but no team will lose as many as Leinster when the international windows and return-to-play periods at the start of the season occur.
Leinster’s disappointment will be more to do with the nature of their loss. The basics of their game malfunctioned, conceding eight scrum penalties and struggling to secure their own lineout ball. They had very little foothold in the game at any stage. They didn’t beat the Stormers in a single area of play.
Their set-piece stats made it difficult to secure possession and their opponents were able to dictate where they played the game as a result. They kicked accurately, with most of their kicking strategy coming in the form of contestable box kicks.
With the current laws making the aerial game more of a contest, Leinster struggled with their aerial skills. Stormers won back the vast majority of kicks. If they didn’t win the ball clearly they were able to force a Leinster knock-on and win the scraps. When Jimmy O’Brien secured a rare ball in the air, Stormers piled pressure into the breakdown and Scott Penny was penalised for going off his feet in a desperate attempt to stop the onrushing Stormers counter ruck.
When Leinster managed to secure their ball, they lost any confrontation on the tackle line. Stormers had many dominant tackles, one of the standouts being a double shot on James Culhane from a goal line drop out. Leinster were physically hurt and when they couldn’t get a foothold in the scrum, lineout or kicking battle, there was no way of turning the momentum around.
Stormers weren’t that impressive in phase play. They had many of their own handling errors, but the foundations of their game were strong which allowed them to play in the right areas. With the penalty count in their favour, they had enough 22 entries to build their lead.
They weren’t even efficient with their scoring. Stormers had a maul try ruled out because of obstruction in the set-up of their maul. Some clever trickery from Diarmuid Mangan pulling his opposite number around the maul made the Stormers player illegal and the try was chalked off by the TMO.
Jurie Matthees attempted some long-range penalties as well, which could have built their lead even more. It was a sign of how the Stormers approached their game. They went 9-0 up after the break, kicking penalties to take control of the game before their defensive pressure turned to points, with Stefan Ungerer benefitting from a blocked kick pass from Sam Prendergast.
It was their maul physicality that did most of the rest of the damage. Leinster were dominated at that stage in the physical exchanges up front. Scrum penalties led to entries and more pressure. Deegan was yellow carded for not rolling away from the tackle area while there was already a penalty advantage in the maul.
Tommy O’ Brien was yellow carded soon after. Despite being hinged at the hips, he still tackled Seabelo Senatla high and Leinster had no way of turning the game around when they were down to 13 players.
Their defensive frailty will get the blame after a 35-point beating, however, it wasn’t their defensive system that got them in trouble. It was their aerial skills, their set-piece and their general lack of physicality on the ball.
Their attacking egos will be hurt as well after being nilled in the opening league game. Again, when you can’t win clean ball from the lineout and concede eight penalties in the scrum, there’s little else you can launch from and the defence will have the upper hand if you’re playing off scraps.
Despite Prendergast controlling the kicking game in the opening quarter, Leinster lost the kick battle for the majority of the game and it slipped away from them completely.
It won’t get any easier travelling to Pretoria to take on the Bulls at altitude. The beaten finalists from last year will have a chip on their shoulder after Leinster dominated them to win the championship.
Leo Cullen has some work to do if Leinster are going to win on the road and get some points on the board. However, it’s very early yet, and with the majority of the senior squad away on one tour or another during the summer, Leinster won’t be panicking yet. Their reaction to the loss will be more important than the loss itself.
