Blues go try crazy to crush Treviso

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The bonus point was wrapped up by the 26th minute as Jordi Murphy, Sean Cronin, Cian Healy and Zane Kirchner all scored, but four more tries in the last 12 minutes meant an unfair battering for the Italians.

But it was not all positives for Leinster, who lost Marty Moore to a knee injury and man of the match Darragh Fanning to a hand injury late on.

And in a remarkably similar incident to the one that saw Jared Payne sent off for Ulster in the Heineken Cup, Treviso centre Christian Loamanu picked up what appeared to be a serious head injury after he collided with Kirchner after 16 minutes.

Referee Neil Paterson and fourth official Dermot Moloney both had a look at the incident, but despite catching Loamanu with his elbow, it was deemed a fair contest as Kirchner had caught the ball in the process. The Leinster coach admitted the incident affected both sets of players.

“I’d like to say from our end that we hope Christian is all right. It takes it out of you. It was an intense first 15 minutes and when that happens everyone sits back a little bit, but thankfully we came back in the second half and fixed it.

“We are pretty pleased really. They are a good side, they have a lot of internationals and I thought we played really well for the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game and we got our reward with a couple of tries. We lost our way with the sin-binnings and the injury though,” said O’Connor.

By that stage Leinster were very comfortable and had already crossed for their first two tries, the first of which arrived when Murphy dived over after Rob Kearney’s inside pass drew the cover.

And on the quarter-hour, Leinster benefited from an Italian error to score again as Cronin was quickest to a misfiring Treviso lineout as he defended the tail.

The injury to Loamanu and delay of action clearly had a massive effect on Treviso and as a result it wasn’t long before Leinster claimed their third try, this time Healy was the lucky recipient.

Jimmy Gopperth extended Leinster’s lead to 22-0 with the conversion and four minutes later he was converting the bonus-point try. Kirchner’s third try for the province was one off the training ground as he linked up with Gopperth to score from the first phase of an attacking scrum.

It looked rosy for Leinster at that stage: 29-0 up after 26 minutes with the bonus point in the bag. But they followed that domination with 35 minutes of mediocrity and allowed the Italians to gain a foothold.

And a minute from half-time Treviso got the try their endeavour deserved as a well constructed lineout maul move gathered momentum towards the Leinster line.

The home side just committed three defenders to stop the maul and only Isaac Boss’s illegal intervention stopped a certain try. The penalty try and yellow card awarded was fully deserved as Leinster took a 29-7 lead into the break.

With the man advantage Treviso looked the more impressive outfit after the restart and a mazy run from former Leinster player Matt Berquist sent Toby Botes over in the corner — only for Kearney’s cover tackle to hold him up.

Leinster’s cause wasn’t helped by a foolish sin-binning for replacement Jack McGrath, who was penalised for kicking the ball out of the scrum-half’s hand at a ruck in the 55th minute, but their second yellow of the night only served to reignite their challenge.

Six minutes later Dominic Ryan peeled off the back of a rolling maul to score Leinster’s fifth try, and 12 minutes from time Noel Reid also crossed following another set move off a lineout — Gopperth again converting to make it 41-7.

Another mid-air collision with Kearney meant Angelo Esposito saw yellow for Treviso in the 69th minute and with an extra man against the faltering Italians Leinster really cut loose.

Jamie Heaslip was first to pick a hole in the defence, while Luke McGrath followed suit in the 77th minute. And as the game turned into added-time, Reid linked up twice with Heaslip to bag Leinster’s ninth. It was a rout.

Scorers for Leinster: Tries: J Murphy, S Cronin, C Healy, Z Kirchner, D Ryan, N Reid (2), J Heaslip, L McGrath. Cons: J Gopperth 7. Pens: Gopperth.

Scorers for Treviso: Try: Penalty. Con: M Berquist.

Leinster: R Kearney; Z Kirchner (B Macken h-t), B O’Driscoll (B Macken 14-16 blood) (I Madigan 66), N Reid, D Fanning; J Gopperth, I Boss (L McGrath 49); C Healy (J McGrath h-t), S Cronin (R Strauss 57), M Moore (M Bent 54); D Toner (T Denton 57), M McCarthy; R Ruddock (C Healy 65-66), J Murphy (D Ryan 23), J Heaslip (c).

Treviso: L McLean; L Nitoglia (J Ambrosini 73), M Campagnaro, C Loamanu (B Williams 17), A Esposito; M Berquist, T Botes (F Semenzato 63); M Muccignat (P Di Santo 63), L Ghiraldini (G Maistri 60), L Cittadini (I Fernandez-Rouyet 60); M Fuser, V Bernabo; M Filippucci, P Derbyshire (A Pavanello 60), R Barbieri (D Budd 44).

Referee: Neil Paterson (SRU).