Leinster put it down to Ella

LEINSTER could hardly have hoped for a better start. A 32-6 victory, four tries and a bonus point and an impressive all-round display. Only 7,200 bothered to turn up, but don’t decry the move to Lansdowne Road just yet. After all, it was a bitterly cold afternoon, Christmas shopping was on the agenda and it was only the first match of a new Heineken Cup campaign.

Biarritz, even without the hugely influential but suspended Serge Betson, shouldn’t be a pushover but that was the case and were lucky to escape an even bigger hiding. A side containing Jerome Thion, a front line French World Cup player, was decimated to the point of embarrassment in the line-out, but they weren’t much elsewhere and especially in the scrums.

Not that Leinster will worry. Two tries by man of the match Shane Horgan in the first half, another gifted to Eric Miller and one touched down by Ben Gissing, ensured the crucial bonus point and Biarritz - unfortunate to come up against a “homer” in English referee David Pearson - had no reason to complain. At the end, the status of Leinster coach Gary Ella had assumed new and lofty proportions.