Kids’ stuff for marauding Lions

AFTER THE massive disappointment of last season’s semi-final loss to Munster, Leinster’s Heineken Cup try-scoring juggernaut is firmly back on track, bonus-point and all.

Lansdowne Road was rocking as Leinster took the field, nearly 23,000 fans making their raucous presence felt, and they didn’t have long for a reason to cheer. Inside two minutes, Leinster scrum on the Gloucester 22, superb dummy line run by Brian O’Driscoll, long pass to strike-partner Gordon D’Arcy (my man of the match), and the whole stadium bore witness — this wasn’t just cutting-edge, this was surgical, the Gloucester defence sliced open, no anaesthetic required.

Then again, they’re only kids, these Gloucester backs, out-half Ryan Lamb, centres Anthony Allen and Jack Adams, barely 20 years of age each, making wingers Mark Foster and James Bailey look pensionable at 23, and while they’ve been doing well domestically, they haven’t come across a backline as powerful or as potent as Leinster’s before. Something readily admitted by coach Dean Ryan.