Leinster’s early gut Cheik

THEY come to Dublin tonight with a reputation as the game’s Great Entertainers but Michael Cheika has warned that London Irish are as likely to bludgeon a side to death up front as they are cut them apart out wide.

Toby Booth’s Exiles have been amassing plaudits for their heads-up brand of running rugby for some time now and have already scored 15 tries in this year’s Guinness Premiership.

The nearest to them are Wasps with ten.

Yet, Cheika saw a different side to tonight’s Pool Six opponents when he travelled to Edgeley Park last Friday night and watched as ‘Irish’ rolled up their sleeves and dug out an 11-9 victory in Sale’s back yard.

“They’ve got an unbelievably solid set-piece,” said the Leinster coach. “They attack the opposition at the set-piece. I think Sale hardly won a lineout and, looking at their videos, they’ve got an unbelievably good defensive lineout led by Bob Casey and (Nick) Kennedy. Their scrum is quite destructive. I think they’ve scored two or three penalty tries already this year and maybe one other pushover. They’ve a strong rotation of four props which they’ll be able to use because of the new rules. I would say the set-piece will be the first point of conflict. And they’ve some unbelievable pace spread out wide. Sailosi Tagicakibau has scored more tries himself than we have as a team all season. I was reading where Toby Booth said they’ve threats all over the park so we’ve got to be mindful of that and shut them down while imposing our own game on them as well.”

Last week’s trip to England’s north-west will have only confirmed what Cheika had known ever since the pre-season friendly between the two clubs in Donnybrook when Leinster failed to cope with the Exiles’ physicality.

“They came here to target us and they probably still see us as being a little bit weak. They can target us in the physical stakes, even after last Saturday. They’re not going to change their approach now. You can see it from the friendly.

“They’ve got the goods. They can do it. They can muscle up. It’s going to be a massive battle for us there. We’ve got a lot to prove in that area and do our supporters proud at home. We have to be just ready.”

With Leinster sitting astride the Mangers League summit and London Irish just one off the top spot in England, tonight’s game may again be used by some as a barometer of the respective leagues’ strengths and weaknesses.

The success of both Leinster and Munster in the Heineken Cup this last four years has reflected well on the Celtic competition, which is nonetheless still viewed with a degree of scorn by some across the water.

It is two years now since Ronan O’Gara launched his famous broadside at the Premiership and if the Magners League has one thing on its side it is the fact that it doesn’t flog its players to the same extent as in England and France. Either way, Cheika wasn’t about to venture into that minefield this week.

“I’ve never been in the English Premiership so I don’t know how better they are than us. That seems to be the common philosophy.

“All I can say is that, as far as preparation is concerned, Irish will have come in with five Premiership and two or three friendly games as a whole squad.

“Ourselves, like Munster, will only be coming in with five or six players coming in with only two or three games preparations. If that’s the perception it’s up to them.”

Leinster, of course, made light of those interrupted preparations to blow Munster away at the RDS last weekend but, as European champions, they will be top of everyone’s hit list in the weeks and months to come.

“I haven’t really felt that to be honest. I know that’s the way it looks from the outside but, for ourselves, it doesn’t feel like that. I’ve said, genuinely, that not a lot of people expected us to win the Heineken Cup last year. And I think even less people expect us to back it up. Only one team has ever backed it up.

“So, the important thing is to believe in ourselves and look at it in the same context as we always do – trying to get out of our group.

“We want to garner as many points as we can from every game. Now the way it’s turned out is that the first game is against one of the best teams in the Premiership. It’s going to be a big game, a big game.”