Luke Fitzgerald backing Leinster to rise from slump

Luke Fitzgerald admits it: Leinster aren’t in a good place.

In their group, that is. As a group? He’s more positive about that.

But Europe first: two games, only one point and with a trip to Toulon to come in round three before the European champions visit the Aviva Stadium six days later. No matter what way you cut that, the province needs to switch into Lazarus mode.

It’s a scenario that has shone an unforgiving spotlight on the operation in general as Leinster find themselves scrambling to save their season. The new coaching ticket headed by Leo Cullen hasn’t been spared though the performances of the World Cup contingent has garnered most scrutiny.

Against Bath on Saturday it was the foreign legion of Hayden Triggs, Ben Te’o and Isa Nacewa that looked sharpest while the late arrivals of Dominic Ryan, Luke McGrath, James Tracy and try scorer Josh Van Der Flier served as a belated shot of adrenalin.

Fitzgerald accepted the inference that, by comparison, the senior Ireland players simply didn’t cut the mustard. Yet, he was forthright in his insistence that there is more than enough talent in the ranks to turn their form around.

“It’s very important that we don’t lose confidence,” he explained. “We have some difficult games coming up in terms of the (Champions) Cup and it is very important that as long as there is still an opportunity we give it our all. I think we will. This group is going to grow and get better.

“You probably saw that Toulon struggled a bit as well on the weekend against Wasps, because they have an awful lot of guys coming back from [World Cup duty, the same as ourselves, which does make it a little bit tricky to getting used to different systems, playing with different guys again.”

Leinster’s woes in the scrum and at the lineout were the most obvious signs of their struggles at the weekend, but Fitzgerald acknowledged that the backs need to do more even on days like last Saturday when opportunities are so limited.

Yesterday’s debrief threw up debates about the need to be more clinical, to kick better and to tighten up on their accuracy when they hit their rucks, but the view is that none of that is rocket science. They are, rather, issues that are eminently fixable.

Few have admitted it, Jonathan Sexton aside, but the issue here is mostly mental. Twenty of Leinster’s squad spent almost four months gearing up for, and participating in, a World Cup that ended disappointingly for all of them.

That has to have an effect though not to the extent that could explain why the province’s scrum - one that featured four Irish international props over the 80 minutes - was mauled by their hosts to such an extent that it led directly to 16 of the 19 points conceded.

Forwards coach John Fogarty admitted it was simply not good enough and explained that the most disheartening aspect to it was that such an experienced Leinster pack proved unable to address their ills and instigate change over the course of the afternoon.

Both Fogarty and flanker Rhys Ruddock were adamant that the Bath scrum had not been underestimated, which is perfectly believable given that unit’s reputation.

“We had a lot to work on from the week before,” said Ruddock.

“There were a lot of things to be thinking about … Sometimes you get caught, it could be in any area. And, as it proved, if you get caught at scrum-time it can have a huge influence on the game.”

Rob Kearney is in line to return from his hamstring injury for Ulster’s Guinness PRO12 visit to the RDS later this week, though Triggs is touch and go after the Kiwi lock rolled an ankle.

Sean O’Brien, Richardt Strauss and Mike McCarthy sat out the Bath engagement because of head injury assessment protocols and it seems as if only McCarthy will be available for the visit of Les Kiss and his side to Ballsbridge.