O’Connor believes spin

LEINSTER V CASTRES

The coach or player is asked about the upcoming opponents and responds with a predictable bunch of superlatives about the other lot having been given a quick briefing on a number of key points beforehand.

It doesn’t change, regardless of who might be coming to town.

Joe Schmidt was a whiz at it during his three years at Leinster. An innocuous question about the opposition routinely elicited hundreds of words on the merits of the other crowd from numbers one through to 15.

His successor, Matt O’Connor, sung a familiar tune this week.

“Everyone knows they won the league last year in France,” he said of Castres Olympique, “and to beat Clermont and Toulon back-to-back [in the knockout stages] takes a pretty massive effort so we’re not underestimating them one little bit.

“They’re a quality side and they have won the Top 14 so they’ve got a pretty solid squad and a very deep squad. Regardless of who they bring they will be pretty dangerous if we let them.”

The devil here, of course, is in the detail.

Castres pitched up in Dublin yesterday minus Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers, the coaches who guided them to a first domestic title in two decades, and who have since decamped to Paris to lead Jacky Lorenzetti’s Racing Metro project.

The club they left behind lies just seven points off the Top 14 lead despite their lowly status down in 11th, but their season thus far has been evenly divided into an unbeaten quintet of games at home and five fruitless journeys further afield.

Their opening joust in Europe delivered a far-from-perfect victory against Northampton Saints at Stade Pierre-Antoine last week and history suggests their consistent inconsistencies will continue on the road today.

When people talk about French travel sickness in this tournament it is sides such as Castres they have in mind. In their last 21 away trips they have succeeded in winning just twice and they came in Scotland and Italy.

Seven trips to Ireland have delivered just a solitary bonus point, earned against Munster back in 2001-02. That, incidentally, marks the only time in 10 attempts they have progressed beyond the pool.

“That’s the nature of the Top 14, isn’t it?” said O’Connor. “They have a focus on winning their home games. That’s probably more to do with the travel and the refereeing than anything else but that is the mindset, that’s the culture.”

Dublin hardly seems the place to change all that given defeat to Clermont Auvergne at the Aviva Stadium last December was Leinster’s first in the capital at the hands of French opposition since Stade Francais claimed a 28-17 win at Donnybrook back in 1999.

Yet there are warning signs, like Leinster’s failure to bag the bonus point fourth try against Castres here five years ago and the locked and loaded side revealed yesterday by new head coach Serge Milhas.

O’Connor has his own reasons to approach with caution.

He has reason to give less credence to the cliché about the soft Gallic spine away from home after his experiences with the Leicester Tigers.

Three years ago, Leicester were left with just a draw after Nicolas Laharrague nailed a 79th-minute penalty at Welford Road and the Tigers were ultimately pipped for top spot and condemned to a quarter-final date with Leinster, which they lost.

Perpignan hadn’t a woeful away record in the Heineken Cup on the face of it, but 12 victories from 32 trips up to that point sounded less flattering when the nine recorded in Italy were removed from the equation.

Even Treviso had done them in the year before.

A 23-19 win over Clermont a year later and a dogfight of a 9-5 victory against Toulouse last season were more predictable results for O’Connor’s Tigers so his respect for Castres’ potential today is only to be expected.

“The quality sides in Europe the last few years, the top French sides, can go anywhere and win. Everyone knows that. Not anything we can control and it doesn’treally interest us in how they come.”

Fully loaded, as it happens.