Leinster start brightly without Irish stars
Instead, it was a familiar tale for the crowd of 9,632 who spilled out onto the Ballsbridge streets on Saturday evening.
Watching Michael Cheika’s team has rarely been dull and so it proved again as they rewarded the impressive crowd with three magnificent tries. The result was never in doubt but the evening was not a complete success. The lack of a fourth try deprived them of the bonus point their dominance deserved and it was in chasing that fourth touch down deep into injury time that they coughed up a sloppy try.
“We started off quite nicely and then we just made a few errors with our hands and turned the ball over a fair bit in the first half,” said Cheika.
“We were allowing them to spoil us. So, we didn’t quite get into gear but we were getting the shape we wanted. I would have been much happier had we got another try.
“We lost our clean sheet at the end, which was disappointing, because our defence was very good. We could have managed that a bit better.
“The main thing is to keep getting the wins while the (Ireland) boys are away, to keep growing the team, especially the pack.”
Their Achilles heel in past campaigns, Cheika has strengthened his hand up front over the summer and the return of Shane Jennings and Leo Cullen from Leicester should ensure savage competition in the second and back rows.
The front row has been the weakest link in recent seasons though and much will be expected of South African prop/hooker Ollie Le Roux when he arrives and Argentina’s ‘next big thing’ Juan Francisco Gomez who featured for 51 minutes.
Said Cheika: “Gomez has to get used to rugby over here. He hasn’t really played pro rugby in Europe before. Stephen Knoop did okay when he came on too but the idea is to do better than okay.”
The picture behind the pack is as rosy as ever, even with Mssrs O’Driscoll, Contepomi, D’Arcy and Dempsey out of the frame.
Luke Fitzgerald, Jonathan Sexton, Gary Brown, Rob Kearney, Michael Berne and Christian Warner were all up for auditions against the Scots two days ago.
Fitzgerald claimed the first try with a searing line break after 18 minutes, Brown burnt two men with an electric turn of pace to score the second shortly after the break and Sexton bashed his way over for the third with 10 to go.
With their penchant for expansive but toothless play and without the likes of Ali Hogg, Hugo Southwell, Simon Webster and Mike Blair, Edinburgh was an ideal opponent on which to start. Intensity levels will rise next weekend as Leinster travel to take on a Cardiff side that punctured title ambitions on the last day of the season in May.
R Kearney; G Brown, M Berne, C Warner, L Fitzgerald; J Sexton, C Whitaker; S Wright, B Jackman, JF Gomez; T Hogan, L Cullen; S Keogh, K Gleeson, J Heaslip.
Replacements: S Knoop for Gomez 51m, S Jennings for Gleeson 61, C Jowitt for Keogh 65, B Blaney for Jackman 68.
N De Luca; A Turnbull, B Cairns, J Houston, A Maxwell; P Godman, B Meyer; A Allori, A Kelly, G Cross; M Mustchin, B Gissing; A MacDonald, R Ross, S Cross.
Replacements: R Grant for Ross 47, G Laidlaw for Meyer 59, Warnock for Godman 59, C Hamilton for Mustchin 62, S Lawrie for Kelly 65, R Reid for MacDonald 65, J Thompson for Cairns 72.
P Fear (WRU).
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