Jennings promising more of the same from Leinster

WINNING at Wembley last October must have been sweet enough in itself but Leinster’s memories of the legendary venue were embellished even further when Saracens coach Brendan Venter vented his fury after the game.

A man who has always marched to the beat of his own drum, the South African fumed at referee Christophe Berdos’ officiating of the breakdown and his failure to sinbin a single Leinster player after the visitors had coughed up a stream of second-half penalties.

For a groundhog like Shane Jennings, that was just music to his ears.

“Yeah he seemed pretty frustrated after the game alright,” said the openside flanker. “I don’t know what he’s talking about when he said killing the game, killing the ball because if you do that you’re going to be penalised.

“We found out that you just have to interpret it the way the ref is playing it on the day. So we did well. They have got a good back-row that can slow up ball and we’re happy the way we competed against them.”

Saracens will be afforded the chance to avenge any such perceived slights this Saturday when they pitch up at the RDS for round five of the Heineken Cup but Venter won’t having only this week returned home to his medical practice in South Africa.

Maybe that is for the best given the fact that he was landed with a €25,000 fine by the ERC after that televised post-match outburst three months ago and Jennings has promised a second course of the same at the weekend.

“It’s going to be no different this week because whatever back-row they pick they’re going to be strong but we have fellas like Richardt (Strauss) on the ball who can be so hard to move. He had a good day that day. We were competitive at the rucks and that flowed into everything else.”

Leinster will approach the tie having been afforded a more recent taste of that same medicine against the Ospreys last Friday in the Magners League when the Welsh side’s approach at ruck-time elicited similarly vocal complaints from the RDS crowd.

Whatever about the legalities of the measures adopted by Scott Johnson’s side and Nigel Owens’ interpretation of the same, Joe Schmidt accepted that his lads had been outplayed at the breakdown and some serious introspection has followed.

“We just had a good meeting there about it on Monday,” said Jennings. “He pointed out things we needed to improve on and I think he hit the nail on the head. So if we can do that, it will go a long way for us to improve this weekend.

“I don’t think any of the players have been really happy about the last two weekends, even if we’ve had a bonus point win against Connacht and a victory against a tough Ospreys side.

“At times we were good in the second-half against Connacht but apart from that we dipped and we weren’t good at all against Ospreys. If we play like we did then against Saracens that’s not going to be good for anyone around here. We need to get better.”

Perhaps, but Leinster’s fine run of form and accumulation of victories have been enough to dilute any hint of criticism from outside the camp over the turn of the year. The accepted wisdom has it that it was always going to be difficult to maintain such prodigious heights and appetite.

Those competitive juices will be bubbling again this week, as they always do when European duties beckon, and Leinster should be energised further by the knowledge that they are the masters of their own destiny entering such a critical seven-day period.

“Yeah, it’s nice to go into this fortnight knowing it’s in your own control. When you go into rounds five and six and you’re chasing a win you still have to pull it out of the bag. So winning is the one constant. There’s no real difference there.

“Genuinely, we just want to put in a good performance and improve upon what we’ve done in the last few weeks and build on some good things we’ve done. If we can do that, build our intensity, make sure we look after the ball in contact, we feel we can do very well.”

They will be performing in front of a crowd that comes bearing high expectations given the five-point buffer zone in the pool and the home support will almost certainly take to their seats harbouring cherished thoughts of a second successive home quarter-final.

With Saracens bottom of the table and Venter recommencing his work at his practice in Cape Town as of today, they are understandable ambitions — but dangerous ones. Saracens’ defeat of Racing Metro in the Stade Yves Du Manoir in the last round is confirmation of that.

“Definitely. First things first and we have to play a very good Saracens team. We saw when they went over to Paris, the job they did on a miserable night there. They’ll have no problems going anywhere. They go up and down England every week and they put in good performances.

“They have a good squad that can do it. So we’re in for a massive, massive test. If we can get through this challenge and come out the right side of it we’re in good nick to go somewhere else but we haven’t even started to look at that yet to be honest.”