Kearney: we’ll go for broke
The high risk strategy is the only option left for Leinster, said the former Irish Examiner Youth Sports Star of the year.
“Maybe our collective form hasn’t been good generally in the last couple of months, but I believe there has been a steady improvement in the last three weeks.
“I feel we got a lot of things right against Toulouse last week — ok, there were some handling errors but it was a much-improved display.
“Obviously it will depend on how well the pack do in Welford Road, but from a backs perspective we’re going to go out and look for four tries and the bonus point win.
“It’s the only way to go at this stage; there’s no point in just looking for the win, although that comes first. Hopefully, we will prove what we’re capable of and at least put ourselves in with some chance of qualification. Any other approach simply isn’t an option.”
Kearney looked back on the Heineken Cup campaign with regret, if not anger, saying: “I think one of the big regrets this season has been the fact that we followed one magnificent performance with a poor one. I — we all — find it terribly frustrating when we don’t play to our potential, and that’s probably the reason why we now find ourselves in such a difficult predicament, battling for survival and having to rely on someone else, as much as ourselves, to bail us out.”
So far it has been a good week for Kearney, who was called into Eddie O’Sullivan’s national squad on Tuesday.
“Delighted with the call, obviously it was a nervous couple of days leading up to it; you always wonder and the thing is you can’t do anything but just wait and hope. But for me, the first thing is to look forward to this weekend, after which everything will be geared towards the Six Nations.”
Kearney says his father David, along with Kurt McQuilkin, was perhaps the biggest influence in pointing out the need for improvement: “He played a bit himself and defence was always his number one priority; he reckons it’s more important than anything and he probably nailed down the necessity to improve in the first place.
“Since Kurt arrived, we’ve all had more opportunity to focus on our defence, to consider what we had been doing as against what maybe we should be doing. I’ve worked harder on it, before and after training as well as during it,” he said.
Kearney respects but isn’t intimidated by opponents; he wasn’t worried about marking French star Vincent Clerc last week against Toulouse and won’t be fazed by the presence of Johne Murphy or even Tom Varndell opposite him today.
“While you obviously must have respect for every opponent, that doesn’t mean you have to be in awe of them; at this level you realise that maybe you’re not too far away from that type of standard yourself.”
Kearney owned up to past defensive boobs, such as high-profile errors against Toulouse (kick charged down) and Edinburgh (interception) in this season’s Heineken Cup.
“When I made those mistakes I just wanted to jump into a hole and hide, ‘cause there’s nothing worse. You have to try to forget and to turn it around with one big positive straight away. I’d like to think that one mistake in a match doesn’t affect my play for the rest of the game.”
Kearney got a run at full-back when Girvan Dempsey was injured earlier in the season, and he was pretty pleased with his form. He sees it as a possible long-term position: “At the start of the season I would have taken either position, but after a few games, I felt really good playing from there.
“I’m a lot more comfortable there, but I recognise that I won’t be able to nail down that spot quite yet with Girvan in such good form at the minute.
“For now, I don’t care once I’m in the side and the most impossible mission we all face now is this crucial game against Leicester.”
Mission impossible? Kearney simply says: “We’ll wait and see.”
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