Livewire Leamy lights up Thomond

SHAUN PAYNE, Trevor Halstead and Federico Pucciarello have huge roles to play, but the European champions could never be the same or mean the same to their massive band of supporters without a strong core of home-grown players.

That point was beautifully made at Thomond Park on Saturday when Denis Leamy and Alan Quinlan, two proud sons of Tipperary, scored three of the four tries against Cardiff Blues, Limerick’s Barry Murphy got the fourth and Cork’s Peter Stringer played a central role in just about everything good that happened in a far from perfect Munster performance.

Leamy’s two early tries should have led to greater things but it certainly wasn’t the Cashel man’s fault Munster had to wait until the eighth minute of injury-time to clinch the bonus point. His strength and footballing skill have helped make him one of the world’s finest players.

“It was good to get my hands on the ball early and to get over for two tries”, he said. “It was a tough game. Cardiff really got stuck into us and gave us the hell of a battle up front.”

Leamy’s first try in the seventh minute was of the trademark variety; the second the product of some quick thinking by himself and Stringer.

“Strings and I tried it a few years ago in Llanelli and it resulted in me being held up”, he recalled. “He kicked the ball forward and Mike Phillips was forced to put it into touch. I saw Strings chase after it and I took my line off that. Ian Dowling went short and Strings threw the ball over him and Martyn Williams and it landed perfectly for me running on to it at speed. I think it was Tom Shanklin who came across to tackle but I managed to palm him off and my momentum took me over.”

When Ronan O’Gara converted to push Munster 14-3 ahead after 20 minutes, it looked like being a stroll. But Cardiff had other ideas.

“We never thought it was going to be easy,” insisted Leamy. “Some teams come over and wilt but they forced us into mistakes. They had obviously done their homework very well. They basically belted us in the mauls. There were bodies flying in from all angles. They were disrupting our ball and did it very well. Obviously, it’s something we’ll have to learn lessons from. But there are lessons in every game and we can be happy at the way things went.”

Leamy claimed the subject of the bonus point was never mentioned, although Ronan O’Gara was clearly chasing seven-pointers from the outset. Leamy insisted the priority was on winning: “This game was fraught with danger because of records and people building us up. We just had to concentrate on the task in hand and if we had been offered nine points before these back to back matches, we’d have taken them.”

As for O’Gara’s frequent use of the touchline rather than opting for three relatively safe points, Leamy explained: “Some times, you have to go at teams. That was early on and we wanted to get our forwards into it. And then they were down a forward so it made sense to try and maul our way over. This is cup rugby and you win the game first before looking for the bonus point.”

Leamy pointed to the huge moment in the second half when Cardiff centre Jamie Robinson knocked on with an equalising seven points there for the taking. “It gave us a serious boot in the backside, we had to refocus and get down the pitch. We had struck a rocky patch at that stage but then we steadied the ship and threw the kitchen sink at them. They defended like madmen. We got the try and that’s where our experience comes in. The boys around me have played this kind of rugby for years and know exactly what to do in this environment. There are going to be mistakes and calls going awry. We pride ourselves on our line-out and set piece and know there’s homework to be done there.”