Blues blessed, but IRFU must still splash cash

Leinster 34 Glasgow 12

The question facing head coach O’Connor is whether the playing personnel that were good enough to become the first side to successfully defend a Celtic League title on Saturday night with a RaboDirect Pro12 final win over Glasgow have what it takes to become European champions for the first time since 2012.

With money talking with increasing influence in professional rugby as French fat cats Toulon take a strong grip on the European club game, O’Connor wants the IRFU to flash some of its cash in Leinster’s cause in order to compete with the new elite in the post-Heineken Cup era.

On Saturday at the RDS after his players had overcome some intensely stubborn resistance from Glasgow to run away with a four-try to nil victory and retain their league title, O’Connor had every reason to feel satisfied with the success he had engineered, having a year earlier taken on the huge task of succeeding Joe Schmidt and reconfiguring a team deprived of its playmaker Johnny Sexton and influential back Isa Nacewa.

The way he had gone about it had attracted some criticism as the tries dried up and Leinster failed to secure a home European quarter-final, paying the price for a home pool defeat to Northampton by drawing a last-eight trip to Toulon’s fortress Stade Felix Mayol.

It was there that Leinster imploded just a small bit eight weeks ago, their frailties exposed by a ferocious and powerful Toulon side in a defeat that still hurts O’Connor and his players. So whatever about this deserved silverware, it is clear this is merely one more step along the road to greater things. The Australian has bigger stages to conquer and he spoke with more than an element of frustration as he implied his hands were tied in the task of building an all-conquering squad.

“I’d love to bring in five or six but that’s never going to happen,” O’Connor said afterwards. “I’m arguing with the IRFU every day to make sure we can win Europe, whether it happens or not I don’t know.”

Did he need more players, given the way his squad had topped the league, in large part thanks to an unbeaten run through the Six Nations when so many of his frontline players were with Schmidt on Ireland duty?

“We didn’t win (the Heineken Cup), you’d have to say yes,” came the response.

O’Connor has undoubtedly ticked a huge box, though, in winning the Rabo during his first campaign since leaving Leicester Tigers last summer. His players spoke of being reminded by their head coach of the hard-earned wins on winter nights at Zebre and Newport when the stars were away winning the Six Nations for Ireland and in return O’Connor was delighted they had cleared the final hurdle in impressive fashion, overcoming the loss of O’Driscoll to a calf strain just nine minutes in and then the dogged Glaswegians, for whom fly-half Finn Russell had kept the scoreboard ticking over throughout the first half.

When Leinster needed to, they delivered the class that had been absent in Toulon. Zane Kirchner, with his best performance in a Leinster jersey since joining in the autumn from South Africa, at the centre of much of it, scoring the opening try on 16 minutes, creating the decisive try for Shane Jennings just before the break, and then in the final 10 minutes, with Glasgow trying to force a response and making errors, adding a second of his own and making a fourth for Gordon D’Arcy.

“It’s huge for the group because we thought going into the game we were a better side,” O’Connor said.

“If we delivered on the things we knew we could deliver on we were confident we could get the result.

“From that end, we did that. We achieved what we wanted to achieve and we’ll draw a line under that, we’ll come in in July and strive to be better again because as soon as you stand still you’re dead in this game.

“We need to make sure we build on the things that have been good, that we improve on the things that haven’t and that we’re better again.”

O’Driscoll’s curtain call had come as early as the ninth minute, prompting a standing ovation that even included the Glasgow coaching staff but Leinster didn’t miss a beat, as Ian Madigan slotted in at 12 alongside fly-half rival Jimmy Gopperth and D’Arcy moved along one place to outside centre.

Whisper it quietly, they may even have looked better balanced in attack, the two playmakers increasing creative options at 10-12 and D’Arcy looking dangerous as the link to Kirchner and back -three comrades Rob Kearney and Fergus McFadden.

“When I came into the job I was very, very comfortable with where we were, managing the transition of Brian moving on with him in the environment,” O’Connor said. “Brian hasn’t played that much rugby for us across the course of the season for a number of reasons and as a result we’ve had the opportunity to look at guys and develop guys and work out what we’re going to do.

“From that end there’s a couple of bodies that we’re short of but we’re pretty comfortable that we’ve got the quality there at this point and we’ll see where we go over the next couple of weeks.”

For this game, Leinster had been prepared, O’Driscoll’s training reduced in the build-up, and as captain Jamie Heaslip explained: “It’s never good losing a player like that, but it’s happened in countless games. It’s not like we weren’t prepared for that. Mads slotted in perfectly.”

It was good enough for victory on Saturday and presents an array of options for O’Connor as he plans for next season with the players already at his disposal, but the Australian is clearly of a mind to spend the summer trying to prise open the IRFU’s purse strings.

LEINSTER: R Kearney (D Fanning, 78); F McFadden, B O’Driscoll (I Madigan, 9), G D’Arcy, Z Kirchner; J Gopperth, E Reddan (I Boss, 78); C Healy (J McGrath, 67), S Cronin (A Dundon, 78), M Ross (M Moore, 50); D Toner, M McCarthy (L Cullen, 60); R Ruddock, S Jennings (S O’Brien, 55), J Heaslip – captain.

GLASGOW: P Murchie; S Maitland, A Dunbar (S Lamont, 55), P Horne (R Jackson, 39-41), T Seymour; F Russell (R Jackson, 67), C Cusiter (N Matawalu, 44); G Reid (R Grant, 45), D Hall (P MacArthur, 25), J Welsh (M Low, 55); J Gray, A Kellock – captain (T Swinson, 50); R Harley, C Fusaro (L Nakawara, 26), J Strauss.

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales).