Schmidt happy as Leinster get clean bill of health for Toulouse
Coming just seven days before the eagerly-awaited Heineken Cup semi-final with Toulouse, the province’s trip to Viadana was fraught with danger. There had been a worry that Leinster might take their eye off the ball and jeopardise their hopes of a home draw in the Magners League play-offs by slipping up against an Aironi side which is not as bad as their record of one win from 21 games suggests.
Of greater concern, though, was a serious injury to one of their star men. To the relief of Schmidt, though, he was able to report a clean bill of health after a win which had been achieved thanks to first-half tries from Sean O’Brien and Cian Healy and 10 points from the boot of Fergus McFadden.
“I wouldn’t say we were great today but I’m pretty happy with the result,” he said. “I’m pretty relieved that we didn’t appear to pick up any injuries. Sometimes they only show up after a couple of days but there doesn’t seem to be anything major so, for us, that’s the most satisfying thing of all.”
Leinster’s performance certainly hadn’t been very satisfying, though, to be fair, a number of changes in personnel and the distraction of Toulouse had played their part.
And Leinster did, at least, score two fine tries during a decent first-half showing.
O’Brien scored the first at the end of the first quarter, the flanker bursting through to score after being released by a terrific inside pass from Brian O’Driscoll.
The second arrived on 34 minutes. McFadden, who landed four of the five kicks which came his way, drove at the Aironi defence before popping the ball up into the path of the supporting Healy, who darted away from two tacklers before taking the ball and Aironi full-back Horacio San Martin with him as he dived for the line.
McFadden’s subsequent conversion made it 20-3 to the visitors and they appeared to decide there and then that they had done enough. They had, as Aironi could muster nothing more than a late consolation try through Gareth Krause, but there was a slight concern over the way in which Leinster had tired in the second period, even failing to capitalise on their temporary numerical advantage while Aironi number eight Nick Williams was serving ten minutes in the bin for a shoulder charge on O’Brien.
“I sensed at half-time when we were 20-3 up that the players were just starting to fade,” Schmidt said. “It’s a little bit more humid here than in Ireland, that’s for sure, and the heat took its toll a tad. But we don’t want to make excuses. We did drop off in the second half. So we’ve really got to make sure that that doesn’t happen against Toulouse next week.”
Scorers for Aironi: G Krause try; T Tebaldi pen.
Scorers for Leinster: S O’Brien, C Healy try each; F McFadden 2 cons, 2 pens.
AIRONI: H San Martin; K Robertson (M Pratichetti, 35), G Pavan, G Pizarro (R Bocchino, 74), D Demas; J Marshall, T Tebaldi (P Canavosio, 55); A De Marchi (S Perugini, 55), F Ongaro (L Ferraro, 65), F Staibano (L Redolfini, 50); J Furro, M Bortolami (Q Geldenhuys, 70); J Sole (N Cattina, 62), G Krause, N Williams.
LEINSTER: D Kearney; F McFadden, B O’Driscoll (S Horgan, 65), E O’Malley, L Fitzgerald; I Madigan, E Reddan; C Healy (H van der Merwe, 63), J Harris-Wright, M Ross (S Wright, 58); D Toner, N Hines; R Ruddock, S Jennings (L Cullen, 70), S O’Brien (D Ryan, 63).
Referee: A McMenemy (Scotland).
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
