Leinster coach rues 'frustrating game'

Leinster coach Matt O’Connor was not impressed at his side’s failure to see out the remaining 60 seconds of their match with Ospreys last night in the Pro 12 after they had taken a three-point lead.

They let a lot of hard work slip through the cracks when they conceded two penalties in 60 seconds, which allowed Dan Biggar kick a penalty to tie the game, a result which saw the Welsh outfit end the game the happier of the two sides.

“It was so disappointing to concede the two points at home – I thought we were the better side for most of it but our own inaccuracies let us down.”

Despite going 3-0 down to a Dan Biggar penalty after just two minutes, Leinster got back on the front foot with two tries after 12 minutes.

The first came after beautiful ball through the hands from Jack McGrath who played a stormer himself and was named man of the match, he supplied to Richardt Strauss who crossed the line – Jimmy Gopperth missed the conversion.

The second was try of the match in a highly entertaining contest at the RDS.

After winning back an Ospreys ball inside their own half Ian Madigan who came on for the injured Darren Hudson after 5 minutes, supplied Gordan D’Arcy with a brilliant angled ball and the veteran was then able to pick out Gopperth, who pierced through the Ospreys defence into the 22 before finding young Dave Kearney on the left wing and he ran home to make it 10-3, the extras were missed again.

The Champions had a few more chances to put themselves on the scoreboard with tries and penalties with Gopperth taking his time to find accuracy, but couldn’t make anything of the final move and became complacent.

O’Connor said: “I thought it was a frustrating game all round – I think the breakdown and how it was refereed didn’t allow a lot of continuity and as a result there was not a lot of free flowing rugby, we certainly tried to play it but we probably weren’t accurate on the day.”

The visitors certainly put their best foot forward in the second half and racked up two quick tries early on from Joe Bearman who needed the assistance from the TMO with Biggar slotting over the extras.

Then Ashley Beck went over after a great pass from Eli Walker, again that man Biggar was good from the boot with the conversion. At that stage the Welsh side were 19-26 up.

The fans leaving the RDS after the match showed they weren’t happy with the outcome.

They saw their side make the most of being a man down when Sean Cronin was sin binned after five resets in an Ospreys scrum.

Indeed they seemed a little stronger and were mauling for the line at first and just not getting there, but when Jordi Murphy managed to brilliantly catch a hanging ball, he found a huge amount of space and opened the gap for what would be a Leinster try scored by Jack McGrath with the conversion good levelling the game.

Gopperth would moments later go on to score a penalty to give the Champions a well-deserved lead during Cronin’s sin binning but they were undone by Biggar’s boot only 30 seconds from time to have to share the spoils.

The Leinster coach added: “The attitude and the courage of the boys to come back into the game and in a position to take points was really pleasing, the effort was first class but at the end of the day you have to me more accurate at the top end or you don’t win.”

Injuries to the backline was certainly a factor and with that a question appeared over when Leinster plan to bring new short term signing Lote Tuqiri in, O'Connor said: “We lost a couple of guys in the back three which was disappointing and we hope to be in a position to select Lote hopefully this week.”

Next for Leinster is a trip to a Glasgow side who will be full of beans after overcoming the odds to upset Ulster in Ravenhill this weekend.

With players who were on duty with the Lions this summer starting to come back into training, I bet being able to select them is something that can’t come soon enough for the new Leinster coach.