Cheika playing down victory

MICHAEL CHEIKA, the Leinster manager, did all he could to keep a lid on the massive expectation sure to surround his side after Saturday’s demolition job of Munster at the RDS.

They have a crucial Heineken Cup assignment with London Irish, the Guinness Premiership table toppers, at the RDS on Friday night and the Aussie appears to doubt whether his team is capable of putting two big performances back-to-back when they are most needed. Even getting him to praise the extremely high standards his team reached was far from easy.

“We got ourselves in the right position to take advantage of a few good bounces,” he allowed. “We were sharp in our speed, we got two really good tries and we were a little more creative. We looked to attack and that’s the reason why we got on the front foot.