Leinster go down with honour after Exeter gunfight

Exeter Chiefs 20 Leinster 29

Joe Schmidt’s men died with their boots on in Devon, digging out a win and four tries deep in Indian territory with a display that offers real hope of further European success via the Amlin route and beyond the summer.

This was rugby’s version of the Gunfight at the OK Corral: a no-holds barred, to-hell-with-convention game of rugby featuring a Chiefs side with nothing to lose and an opponent that knew it had to go for broke.

The visitors had promised they would look to win the game first and foremost before turning their attention to the four tries they needed to keep their faint hopes of a quarter-final place in the Heineken Cup alive.

Instead, they did exactly the opposite and it was only after tries for Gordon D’Arcy, Rob Kearney, Brian O’Driscoll and Jamie Heaslip — the last coming after 53 minutes — that they got around to making the game safe.

Kudos to Exeter for that.

They have since earned a reputation for exuberance and off-the-cuff rugby that had once summed Leinster up so neatly but their brute force and belligerence in battle was summed up by two tries sourced from the trenches.

They held a 17-12 lead and had all the momentum at half-time and it wasn’t until Jonathan Sexton kicked over an insurance penalty five minutes from the end that Leinster could stop glancing over their shoulders.

It was a victory greeted by an absence of cheers and fist-pumping. No-one expected Munster to fluff their lines in Limerick yesterday so Schmidt was happy to reflect on a curtailed Heineken campaign when all was said and done.

There was much on which to reflect: the misfortune at being lumped in with Clermont Auvergne again, the litany of injuries that derailed the first half of their season and that oh-so-close loss against Vern Cotter’s side in France.

It was the second loss to the Top 14 outfit, in Dublin, that left them cornered but they will think back too to the opening pair of games against Exeter and Scarlets when they could only amass eight points and a solitary try.

“It has been a hell of a challenge,” said Schmidt. “We have used more guys than we certainly had for the last two years in the Heineken Cup. We have blooded a number of younger guys for the Heineken Cup and that has to be positive for the future because players will transition in and out.

“The challenge I would give to the team is that it is the player that puts on the jersey (that has to do the job) and if it is not the international, recognised player that puts it on, you have still to live up to that standard.

“It is one of the things with the depth that some squads in Europe would have in that they wouldn’t be as adversely affected but at the same time it has been a fantastic challenge to try and negotiate a way through. We have been imperfect but an ‘A’ for effort.”

Schmidt is a pragmatic kind of guy but he couldn’t help but suggest the first seeds of their downfall were sown in The Stoop last May the evening before they sealed a third Heineken title with the defeat of Ulster at Twickenham.

Clermont Auvergne would have been ranked in the first rather than the second group of seeds had Toulon rather than Biarritz won that Amlin Challenge Cup final eight months ago but that way madness lies.

Leinster may have fallen short this time but they became the first side since the Ospreys six years before to do so despite the accumulation of 20 points and they have shown this month that they are far from a spent force.

Thirteen tries in the last three games just happened to coincide with the return to fitness of their leading lights and the frustration for them now must be that they will disperse again this week just when they have rediscovered their mojo.

EXETER CHIEFS: L Arscott; I Whitten, S Naqelevuki, J Shoemark, M Jess; G Steenson, K Barrett; B Moon, N Clark, H Tui; T Hayes, D Mumm; T Johnson, J Scaysbrook, R Baxter.

Replacements: B White for Johnson (15); C Rimmer for Moon (54); W Chudley for Barrett (54); J Hanks for Hayes (55); C Mitchell for Tui (63); J Yeandle for Clark (79); N Sestaret for Shoemark (79).

LEINSTER: R Kearney, I Nacewa, B O’Driscoll, G D’Arcy, L Fitzgerald; J Sexton, E Reddan; C Healy, R Strauss, M Ross; L Cullen, D Toner; K McLaughlin, S O’Brien, J Heaslip.

Replacements: S Cronin for Strauss (40); I Boss for Reddan (55); R Ruddock for McLaughlin (61); H van der Merwe for Healy (67); M Bent for Ross (67); I Madigan for O’Driscoll (79).

Referee: R Poite (France).