Gaffney ‘under no illusions’ for trip to Castres

PHRASES like depth, alignment, width and ruck ball were tossed about with abandon in D4 yesterday but Alan Gaffney was honest enough to cut through all the jargon and admit that Leinster’s back play just didn’t cut the mustard last Saturday.

Rarely can a 30-point Heineken Cup win – especially one where the victim was French — have been met with such negativity, but Leinster’s inability to register a bonus point despite a torrent of possession against limited opposition was sure to attract its share of opprobrium.

“In terms of passing, it probably was the worst performance we have put in this year,” admitted Gaffney. “We work on it every training session so there is no real reason to suspect why it happened. A lot of the passing was thrown into the body and that is a timing issue.

“We have chopped and changed (players) but that still shouldn’t affect what we did at the weekend. Passing it into the body and shoulder like we did took a lot of the pace out of what we were trying to do. We did create a number of things but, when the pace comes off the game, it is a very difficult thing to regenerate.”

Leinster’s slick running game has been missing this season despite the summer return of the popular Australian who is the de facto backs coach.

Gaffney fills the same brief with Ireland and both sides have been criticised in recent weeks for the flat alignment of their back lines, a trait that owes much to the influence of the Randwick style of rugby, the Sydney club which Gaffney and Michael Cheika both call home.

“Playing flat doesn’t mean you have to start flat. It’s where you hit the ball. No, I don’t like playing the game from depth. It looks pretty but it doesn’t put any real pressure on the opposition. You’ve got to vary your depth and varying your depth and line is probably the hardest thing for any back line to do, and for a ten and 12 to do, because the ten sets the depth and the 12 the alignment.”

The Castres game was the first the majority of the province’s first-string back line had played together since the Glasgow Magners League game six weeks previously.

Gaffney also accepted there was a lack of width in Leinster’s game, a fault he says has been all too familiar for the side this season and, though Girvan Dempsey feels some of the criticism has been overdone, he too accepts that their report card leaves something to be desired.

“The players have looked at the video and we feel we did leave some scores behind us,” said the full-back. “Some of our execution – our passing – was very poor.

“It was well below our standard. Sometimes we made the line break but our support wasn’t quick enough to the ball carrier to finish things off so those are the two elements we’ve addressed this week.”

More of the same mistakes will carry a higher price tag this Friday in a return leg where, despite their increasing injury worries, Castres are expected to offer a much improved package.

“If you look at any French side at home, they’re a completely different animal,” said Dempsey. “They play a completely different brand of rugby and are always so passionate in front of their home fans. We’re going out under no illusions.”