Conway leads way for Leinster young guns

ANDREW CONWAY marked his first Magners League game of the season with a fine try and some memorable cameos as Leinster’s young guns helped secure a hard-fought win over battling Edinburgh at the RDS on Saturday.

In his fifth senior appearance, the 19-year-old winger grabbed his first try for the province and was afterwards described as a special talent by team-mate Paul O’Donohoe, hailed by coach Joe Schmidt but then reminded he’s not yet the full package.

“Andrew? He’s not slow is he?” O’Donohoe said. “He’s like a gazelle in training, yeah, he’s undoubtedly very good, has great feet and a crazy natural turn of speed. He’s a Denis Hickie type and getting better all the time.”

Head coach Schmidt agreed but with reservations, emphasising Conway’s need to brush up on some aspects of his game. “He’s an exciting raw talent but has edges that we need to mould a bit. He needs to work on his timing and angles of running but he’s a good player. ”

Conway was one of a group of youngsters, amongst them O’Donohoe and Ian Madigan, given their heads by the coach Schmidt who agreed he got mixed results.

“The game plan was to go out and attack, we decided we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees and with the young guys it would be better to let them get the ball in their hands if we were genuinely to allow them give it a go. A couple of times it worked and a couple of times we put ourselves under pressure.”

Schmidt had every reason to thank the senior front-liners too, adding: “I don’t think the older guys should be forgotten.

“Shane Jennings got through a huge amount of work, and Leo Cullen too, I think it was really important that Nathan Hines performed, and Mike Ross put in 80 minutes even though we had only planned for 40 – because he gave us that rock-solid scrum. It was like that the experienced guys helped the young guys and the young guys sparked us (enough) to get over the line.”

Schmidt revealed that international fly-half Jonathan Sexton also played a role in the win by imparting advice to young number 10 Ian Madigan at key moments.

“He (Sexton) ran water for us and made sure his knowledge and experience was passed on to Ian, who ran a lot of lines like Jonny but still needs work on his kicking game. We didn’t have the same ability to control the game from the foot as we would have had with Jonny or if Rob Kearney was there as well. But every time he (Madigan) plays he gets more confidence and it’s a good investment to have a guy like that get his opportunity.”

Schmidt argued strongly against any negativity in the manner of victory.

“I think you must give credit to Edinburgh too. It has been interesting looking at the tries they have scored through the competition; they have good runners in the back three and in the back row, and once they get into space they’re very efficient finishers.

“It has been a good October for results and that’s important. It’s always disappointing when you concede tries. For us up to this, it was two in four games and now it’s two in one game, but Edinburgh are probably one of the toughest teams to keep under wraps.

“We kind of clumsied it out a little bit but managed, thankfully, to close it out.”

LEINSTER: I Nacewa; S Horgan, E O’Malley, F McFadden, A Conway; I Madigan, P O’Donohoe; H van der Merwe, R Strauss, M Ross; L Cullen (captain), N Hines; D Ryan, S Keogh, S Jennings.

Replacements: I Boss for O’Donohoe (53), R Ruddock for Keogh (67), S Berne for Madigan (injured, 77)

EDINBURGH: C Paterson; J Thompson, A Grove, J Houston, T Visser; M Blair, A Jacobsen; R Ford, G Cross, S MacLeod; E Lozada, R Grant (capt), R Rennie, N Talei.

Replacements: D Young for Cross (51), G Laidlaw for Blair (60), K Traynor for Jacobsen (61), S Newlands for Talei, D Bishop for Houston (both 67), C Hamilton for Lozada (69)

Referee: C Damasco (Italy).