Leinster battle for share of the spoils

Leinster 16 Neath-Swansea Opsreys 16

After their demolition at the hands of Llanelli two weeks back, hard questions had been asked of the province’s fighting spirit but last night they dug-deep to contain a visiting side desperately in need of the points to secure European qualification.

Both Brian O’Driscoll and Girvan Dempsey were late withdrawals from the home side’s starting line-up and one look at the dust-bowl that constituted the Donnybrook pitch and it was easy to see why they weren’t straining at the leash to play.

There was hardly a visible blade of grass outside either 22 and each collision to ground was met with a plume of dust that took a few seconds to evaporate.

The absence of the international duo gave James Norton and Shane Horgan starting spots with Gordon D’Arcy switching back to his reputation-gaining position of outside-centre.

And it was Six Nations player of the year who was central to most of Leinster’s early forays, performing a trademark dissection of the Ospreys’ midfield which would have resulted in a try had his supporting cast been alive to the opportunity.

That apart, the Opsreys looked a tad brighter in the opening exchanges and they got their due reward when Andy Williams, Sean Connor and Dave Tiueti combined off the base of a scrum to release flying winger Shane Williams under the posts for a neatly worked try.

Full-back Gavin Henson added the convert for a deserved lead but just five minutes later Brian O’Meara knocked over his first penalty of the evening to narrow the gap.

Leinster suffered an early second-half blow when D’Arcy was forced to leave the field with a shoulder injury, but his loss, strangely, appeared to galvanise his colleagues.

O’Meara landed a penalty from point blank range almost immediately and moments later, James Norton crossed for a well-worked Leinster try after some sterling midfield ball carrying by Horgan. The Ospreys weren’t in the mood to roll over and die, however.

After an inordinate amount of possession inside the Leinster 22, Henson eventually rewarded his sides’ efforts with a penalty to level the scores at 13-13 and in the final ten minutes, the Ospreys full-back and O’Meara exchanged further penalties to ensure both sides emerged from the game with a brace of points.

LEINSTER: J Norton; S Horgan, G D'Arcy, D Quinlan, B Burke; F Contepomi, B O'Meara; R Corrigan, S Byrne, P Coyle, M O'Kelly, B Gissing; D Dillon, V Costello, N Ronan.

Replacements: J McWeeney for D'Arcy, 43 mins; A McCullen for Ronan, 66 mins; D Dillon for Gissing, 75 mins; G Hickie for Byrne, 75 mins.

THE OSPREYS: G Henson; S Terblanche, J Storey, D Tiueti, S Williams; S Connor, A Williams; D Jones, B Williams, A Jones; A Newman, L Tait; J Thomas, J Bater, R Pugh.

Replacements: P James for Tait, 48 mins; N Bonner-Evans for A Jones, 55 mins; E Seveali'i for Storey, 64 mins; S Tandy for Pugh, 68 mins.

Referee: M Changeleng (Scotland).