Gaffney: we owe Exiles one

ALAN GAFFNEY isn’t the type to beat his chest and deliver a piercing war cry, but the quietly-spoken Australian does admit that Leinster will be looking for some payback in Twickenham tomorrow.

Fourteen weeks have passed since London Irish spoiled the Irish side’s first game as defending European champions – and in Ballsbridge to boot – and the memory doesn’t sit well with the consultant coach.

Mix in the reputation both sides possess for their commitment to running rugby, and the fact that they are battling for the right to top Pool Six and the ingredients would appear to point towards a potential classic.

“Absolutely,” he agrees, “both sides want to win. We want to win for obvious reasons, but not only because of the table – and this is not being said in a nasty way – but we owe them one. The boys know it. They were disappointed at what happened at the RDS. That’s not taking anything away from Irish.

“They deserved to win that night. There is no way we are saying ‘if this would have happened or that would have happened’; they deservedly won the game. We are still disappointed by what happened that night and, to be truthful, the boys would like to turn that around.”

Who knows what reality will deliver. Neither side actually managed to score a try last October in a game that failed to live up to its cavalier billing but which did, nevertheless, receive the thumbs up from those who value physicality over fancy footwork.

Tomorrow’s rematch is also coloured by the standings. A losing bonus point, or preventing the Exiles from claiming five, would guarantee Leinster the group garlands, and possibly even a home berth in the last eight.

Permutations can lure unsuspecting teams onto the rocks of defeat, however, and a Leinster victory would eradicate the need for calculators. With that in mind, they have promised that attack will be their chief means of defence.

“We are going out to be positive, no matter what Irish do,” Gaffney said. “We can’t sit back on our heels and think we have got to deny Irish scoring four tries or get a losing bonus point and proceed on our merry way to the quarter-finals. That’s not the way we can look at it.

“We will go out to play rugby. Which way are Irish going to look at it? Will they be trying to win the game and hopefully go through as the best second-placed team, or go out to try and get the five points and win the pool? Both things will be in their mind.

“They will see how the first half goes but I don’t think anyone can put the cart before the horse. You can look back at similar days in the past in qualification and you can’t look at the four tries. You have to look at the performance. If things develop they develop.”

In saying that, Gaffney knows from his time in the Guinness Premiership with Saracens that Leinster will hardly be able to adopt a carefree attitude against a aside that can sting quickly and unexpectedly.

“They’re a side who have got great counter-attacking abilities. If you give their back three a lot of space and time you are going to create problems for yourself. Obviously they’re a great side who have an innate ability to take intercepts and run huge distances and score tries.

“You can’t become loose and try to play Sevens rugby against them. It doesn’t mean you can’t attack them, but we will play a controlled game, which will be very positive.”

As it stands, Leinster possess a five-point buffer but Gaffney knows too well that it could have been oh-so-different had one or two individual instances gone ever so slightly differently.

It took Leinster the full 80 minutes against Brive to claim four tries and a bonus point which could make all the difference in the group, but the gap between success and failure was even less the following day in Llanelli.

The Scarlets’ comeback from 22-10 down in the second-half demanded most of the attention but, as Gaffney pointed out, the key moment came when Irish were still just two adrift late in the game.

“If he (Chris Malone) throws a pass, it goes to hand and they score five points and they’re top of the pool. That’s as simple as it is.

“The pass doesn’t go to hand, they don’t score in the corner and they don’t get the bonus point. It’s a game of small margins. They could be sitting at the present time on 20 points, top of the pool with us going there struggling to qualify. That’s how close this pool is.”