Sean O’Brien’s return tips scales for Leinster
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Leinster’s roller-coaster outing against Glasgow Warriors last weekend provided the perfect metaphor for their season to date - woeful and competent in equal measure.
Trailing by 20 points at half-time, Leinster’s impressive second-half comeback will only reinforce their belief that, even playing badly, they have what it takes to turn games around.
Matt O’Connor has a difficult job to re-integrate so many players who haven’t featured in a Leinster shirt since their Rd 6 Champions Cup draw against Wasps back on January 24th. At least the vast majority of his charges have been playing at the highest level with Ireland and won’t be found wanting in terms of match sharpness or intensity. The key for Leinster today is how quickly they gel as a collective. That seems ridiculous in a season that is already more than seven months old.
While O’Connor decamped to Portmarnock for a few days to pull everyone together and refocus on the elements necessary to get the entire squad on the same page, Bath coach Mike Ford oversaw a two-day Bath camp with the Wigan Warriors. The emphasis over the two days with the rugby league giants was on attack and this Bath side will not come to Dublin and be conservative. They play without fear or restriction and have the most attack-orientated back line in the Aviva Premiership. Any side that can win 35-18 at Toulouse’s Stade Ernest Wallon deserves respect. They also beat Montpellier 30-5 away from home, so clearly suffer no inhibitions on the road.
If anything, the prospect of playing in the wide expanses of the Aviva Stadium will only serve to energise them even further. The fact that George Ford, Jonathan Joseph and Anthony Watson were all on the receiving end against Ireland at the same venue only a few weeks ago will have prepared them even better for what they will face today.
Leinster have been inconsistent all season, yet they still delivered a home quarter-final in Europe and are fighting for a top four slot in the Guinness Pro 12. That resilience will stand to them today.
Then again Leinster don’t have a monopoly on that key ingredient and Bath have also shown resilience and fortitude in becoming the first side to make the European quarter-finals having lost their opening two pool games. .The big game changer for the visitors however from those excellent away wins on French soil is an injury crisis at tight-head. In a game of tight margins, that opens a door for Leinster to exploit.
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For all the attacking brilliance Bath have delivered on a consistent basis in domestic and European competition this season, the foundation delivered by a very competent and workmanlike front five has been key. Every back line thrives on front foot ball but when you have the pace and stepping ability of this Bath unit, they have the capacity to rip you apart if presented with quality possession.
For all the ability that Ford, Joseph, Watson, Kyle Eastmond, Sam Burgess, Semesa Rokodungini and Horacio Agulla bring to proceedings, the strength of the Bath scrum and line out maul has proved equally important. Against Glasgow in the pool decider at the Rec in round six, the decisive factor was not their speed of foot in the three-quarter line but the two penalty tries generated by their scrum and maul respectively.
The Bath scrum proved crucial in those away wins in Toulouse and Montpellier and provided a comfort blanket for their talented but inexperienced back line away from home. Injury has decreed that Bath are vulnerable in that area today and Leinster, with two full Irish international front rows available to them, must remove that comfort blanket. This is the day for under pressure forwards coach Leo Cullen to earn his corn.
Welsh loose head Paul James’ return to the fray is timely given the massive loss to the visitors of their two England tight heads in Dave Wilson and Henry Thomas. Bath have specialised all season in playing one complete front row unit for 50 minutes and replacing them with another quality unit to finish out the game. That crucial element is missing today and Leinster must exploit that. McGrath and Cian Healy have being doing that for Ireland throughout the Six Nations while Sean Cronin now has the chance to showcase his talents from the outset. On the tight-head side Mike Ross, surplus to requirements for Leinster in their last European outing against Wasps, had a great championship for Ireland with Marty Moore backing up his efforts. Devin Toner needs to grab this game by the scruff of the neck.
he visitors also have a potent force in the second row with Dave Attwood enjoying an excellent Six Nations for England while captain Stuart Hooper also provides an uncompromising presence. Despite all the flash and dash on offer behind the scrum, if Leinster can impose themselves and exploit the loss of Wilson and Thomas, they have what it takes to make the last four.
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Having a fit and bristling Sean O’Brien back in Leinster colours for the first time since September could prove the winning and losing of this game. His performance against Scotland last time out was spectacular and inspirational and Leinster are a different team with him on board.
Without him to do battle with his Bath counterpart, outstanding Springbok Francois Louw, the scales would be tipped in the visitors’ favour. Leinster and Ireland have missed the qualities both he and Cian Healy bring to the mix and given the quality ball carriers Bath have in their back row in Louw, Carl Fearns and Leroy Houston, the return to action of that duo greatly enhance Leinster’s prospects of advancing to the semi final. Jamie Heaslip has soldiered on valiantly in O’Brien’s absence but is even more influential with the Tullow man by his side. While the likes of Houston, Fearns and Matt Garvey off the bench enjoy nothing like the profile or reputation of the international back rowers around them today, they are formidable ball carriers with the capacity to wreak havoc.
Think back to the damage imposed by a similar Wasps back row in James Haskell, Ashley Johnson and Nathan Hughes in the second half of Leinster’s last Champions Cup outing and you get the message. In addition to their role with ball in hand,
O’Brien, Heaslip and Murphy will have to use all their experience and know how in and around the tackle area in order to slow the delivery of the visitors recycle. Leinster’s famed defence has been way off the mark in recent weeks and if Bath are offered the space that Glasgow experienced last week they will wreak havoc.
Leinster missed far too many tackles in that game and were way off the mark in terms of the physicality required to compete at this level. That places a huge onus on their returning Irish contingent to deliver. The evidence of recent weeks would suggest they have the capacity to do just that.
