D’Arcy: time has come for hungry Lions to deliver

GORDON D’ARCY has admitted that it is time for Leinster’s superstars to start landing trophies and Munster are the team they intend using as their template.

Since winning the inaugural Celtic League back in the 2001/02 season, Leinster have twice reached the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup and finished runners-up to Ulster in last year’s Celtic League competition.

However, with most of their lauded backline beginning to peak, Felipe Contepomi back from injury and the pack beginning to gel, the 26-year old accepts that near misses are no longer an option.

“The hunger is always there,” said the Wexford-born centre. “We’ve had medium success in silverware. We’ve one Celtic League but that’s not a huge amount to write home about.

“Watching the other guys (Munster) win has spurred us on. If they can do it, we can do it.

“We’re competing at the highest level and we just need to find that extra 2%-3% to get us into the final and win the thing.”

Though they cruised past the Ospreys in Donnybrook on Saturday night, D’Arcy was hugely disappointed with their late concession of two tries and believes Leinster need to improve by 30% on that performance.

The same could hardly be said for D’Arcy himself. Named man of the match after yet another electric performance, he has been submerged in plaudits in recent months.

“The team played well and there were a few outstanding performances against the Ospreys,” said coach Michael Cheika. “Gordon was exceptional in defence and attack and we are lucky to have him.

“Overall it’s good for Gordon and Brian O’Driscoll to be running themselves into some good form before the Heineken Cup matches.”

Contepomi echoed those words in adding: “He makes life easy for you as an outside half and, if you give him the ball in space, defences often can’t get near him, which is what happened against the Ospreys.”

For D’Arcy, the feeling is mutual. Christian Warner, Andy Dunne and Jonathan Sexton have all had their turn at filling the Argentinian’s boots and, though all impressed in one way or another, none can match the South American.

Having him back for the upcoming European trysts with Edinburgh and Gloucester increases Leinster’s chances of success.

“His goal kicking and all-round play is so important for us,” said D’Arcy yesterday at Croke Park to launch the SuperValu Kids in Action initiative.

“He looks back to his old self already. We’ve got a big job against Edinburgh. They really put it up to us over there. We’re back in our own home of Donnybrook now and we’ll want to put in a good performance.”

That one-point defeat to the Scottish side threatened to derail Leinster’s ambitions before the back-to-back victories over Agen and Cheika admitted yesterday that he will be approaching this Saturday’s encounter with thoughts of “payback” on his mind.

Though bottom of the group — that win was the Gunners’ sole victory so far this campaign — D’Arcy is wary of the threat posed by this weekend’s visitors.

“They are all very comfortable on the ball. They play the ball very wide, quite similar to the Ospreys in that they keep the ball and tire you out. They rely on you making a mistake in defence and they have a very good goal kicker (Chris Paterson). Their’s is a pace and momentum game.”

Though reluctant to make any predictions for the year to come, D’Arcy does believe that, on their day, Leinster are a match for any team in Europe.

As everyone knows though, it is on days when things are going pear-shaped that a team learns most about itself and it is to Munster again that D’Arcy looks for inspiration on that score.

“If you don’t learn from your defeats then you’re wasting your time. There have been a few crucial ones, that one (to Edinburgh), the loss to Munster in Thomond. They’re games where you have to learn to be smart.

“We learnt from the Munster semi-final last year and used that against Agen this year. We didn’t try to go for another four tries down there. We tried to close the game out.”

Meanwhile, Chris Paterson should be available for the weekend’s trip to Dublin despite suffering some soft tissue damage to his back during last week’s Magners League win against the Llanelli Scarlets.

The Scottish international will spend the week in rehab but the Gunners are still awaiting definite confirmation on the well-being or otherwise of scrum-half Mike Blair and lock Matt Mustchin, both of whom sustained collarbone damage in the same game.