Ref justice aids lacklustre Leinster

Leinster’s Isa Nacewa scores his side’s only try in their nervy Magners League win over the Dragons at the RDS.

LEINSTER secured the win and picked up the Magners League points on a balmy evening at the RDS on Saturday, but Dragons coach Paul Turner won’t allow the Heineken Cup champions to sit on their laurels.

Turner questioned a couple of decisions made by Scottish referee Graham Knox which, he insisted, gave Leinster the initiative and probably cost his side the spoils.

Clearly frustrated at being denied a losing bonus point at the death, Turner was disappointed his team hadn’t won, and he believes they did enough to deserve victory.

Certainly, he felt they didn’t deserve to come away with nothing: “A pass leading up to a Leinster try was a yard and a half forward; I know they got behind us but a forward pass is a forward pass. Add on the decision in the first-half when the ball hit the corner flag and Leinster were awarded a scrum from which they got three points, and you’ll see that things didn’t exactly go our way.

“All things considered, to get back to 20-14 was indicative of how the guys are responding to what’s needed this season. I think that performance deserved better than coming away with nothing,” he said.

Leinster’s Michael Cheika didn’t enter the debate; he was far too busy assessing how his side had escaped with a result from this dull, error-ridden encounter where the only real hint of class came from Isa Nacewa, Sean O’Brien and occasionally Shane Horgan.

Cheika admitted it wasn’t a particularly memorable display. “We are not pleased with our performance in the rucks; we never got a bit of flow into our game but the Dragons have become a very competitive side in that particular area of the game.

“Neither was I pleased with some of our first-up tackling; we gave them opportunities that we shouldn’t have given them but these are things that we will work on. We can see by the results so far that playing on home ground doesn’t guarantee anything; certainly the Dragons put it up to us,” he said.

In the opening half, the Dragons signalled their intent to attack from the opening moments only to fall behind to a Jonathan Sexton penalty after 13 minutes.

The visitors deservedly equalised through James Arlidge four minutes later, and he failed narrowly to draw his side level a second time with a 25th minute drop goal attempt, after Sexton had kicked his second penalty midway through the half.

However, Leinster won’t be happy that they failed to capitalise when Dragons’ open-side flanker Gavin Thomas was sin-binned midway through the half. Ironically, it was after Thomas’ return that Leinster came closest to scoring but they had to wait for the Dragons to lose another man – centre Ashley Smith was shown the yellow card – before Sexton got the opportunity to kick his third penalty.

Ironically, while Smith was off the pitch the Dragons enjoyed their second best spell, and on the stroke of half time edged back into contention with a superb drop goal by Arlidge.

Cheika’s substitutions did the trick for struggling Leinster, as they battled to avoid an embarrassing night at the office. Nathan Hines, Eoin Reddan and Gordon D’Arcy all arrived on the scene in the 53rd minute and D’Arcy’s incursion into the line from the left wing – he replaced David Kearney – was enough to give Nacewa the space to get in to score a fabulous opening try to establish a 14-6 lead.

A couple of attacks later and Leinster were 11 points to the good, courtesy of a superb drop goal from Shaun Berne.

Leinster almost blew this one when they conceded a 71st-minute try, the product of a brilliant break from Richard Fussell that yielded the score for full back Martyn Thomas. But they hit back quickly, and Sexton kicked a further penalty to put a secure two score advantage between the teams at 20-11.

Arlidge gave the Dragons hope with a late penalty that should have secured them a losing bonus point, but they conceded ground again at the end when they failed to clear an unsuccessful Fergus McFadden penalty attempt while Sexton was in the sin-bin.

McFadden’s kick came back off the crossbar; two Dragons players fumbled and only managed to concede a scrum, after which Berne was afforded the space to drop another goal.

LEINSTER: I Nacewa, S Horgan, F McFadden, S Berne, D Kearney, J Sexton, C Keane, C Healy, J Fogarty, M Ross, L Cullen (captain), D Toner, K McLoughlin, S O’Brien, S Jennings.

Replacements: N Hines for Toner, E Reddan for Keane, G D’Arcy for Kearney (all 52), S Wright for Ross (61), S Keogh for O’Brien (77)

NEWPORT GWENT DRAGONS: M Thomas, A Brew, T Riley, A Smith, R Fussell, J Arlidge, W Evans, A McKenzie, S Jones, N Hall, R Sidoli, L Charteris (captain), D Lydiate, G Thomas, G Webb.

Replacements: A Jones for Charteris (40, injured), H Gustafson for McKenzie (56), J Harris for Webb, D Goodfield for Jones (both 68), G Robinson for Hall (75).

Temporary replacement: Goodfield for Jones (36-42).

Referee: G Knox (SRU).