Seven tries, but scary thing is Leinster not even at full tilt yet

Forget the 14 tries Leinster have plundered against the Saints this last two weekends. Ignore the fact that, with this win, they became the first team in history to make the European Cup’s knockout stages with two rounds to go.

Never mind the physicality and the finesse and the star power.

The truly astounding thing about Leinster right now is that there is more in them.

Undefeated as they are across 11 games this season, they have yet to put together an 80-minute performance. They conceded 12 penalties and three tries here. They had two five-pointers scratched by the TMO and another handful squandered by their own errors.

“Oh, like, we talk about every week that we’re pissed off because we haven’t put in a complete performance yet and in a way it’s kinda scary,” said the winger James Lowe.

“We genuinely go in at half-time sometimes and we think, ‘We haven’t even fired a bullet yet’, like.

“And the times that we do get it right, it’s gonna be awesome. People come to watch us and they’re stoked at the moment but, you wait, when we get it right it’s gonna be something special.”

The mind boggles.

Leo Cullen has been making similar noises, in a much more understated way, for the last few weeks, although any dissection of this latest Heineken Champions Cup win has to be performed alongside a cutting analysis of Northampton.

Chris Boyd’s side was missing 10 players through injury, Courtney Lawes, Cobus Rheinach, and the Franks boys among them. They left out two more in Teimana Harrison and Ryan Hutchinson and they already were on the ropes after the nature of their heavy loss in Franklin’s Gardens the week before.

The game was almost over inside six minutes, by which time Garry Ringrose had claimed two of his tries on the way to a second European hat-trick inside a month, and the try-bonus point was secured four minutes before the break thanks to scores from Tadhg Furlong and Dave Kearney.

It was all so easy.

So much so that first-half tries from Dan Biggar and Ollie Sleightholme were mere annoyances rather than anything vaguely related to a threat. Another, from Ahsee Tuala, was compromised by the concession of three more, from Lowe, Ringrose, and Caelan Doris, after the break.

Leinster scored seven but they could have hit double figures and bettered the 60 points they put on the Saints — who were guilty of conceding at least three soft tries and had two men sinbinned in the first-half — when they last visited Dublin three years ago.

“They’ve got very good players and in most teams and sports you’ll be up there in the mix if you have that,” saidBiggar.

“They have a team of international quality from 1 to 23 and then they are coached extremely well. It helps that a lot of them play so much rugby together, whether it is with Leinster or Ireland. They play so much together and then they are big-game players as well.

“When it comes time to deliver big performances they have got guys with that track record as well.

They dominated us physically and that’s what they do against a lot of teams and teams who have had success against them in the past have stopped that momentum and put them under pressure. We couldn’t stop that momentum and apply any pressure in our games.

Leinster’s individual performers are catching the eye as much as the collective. Ross Byrne, the starting 10 in Jonathan’s Sexton’s absence, was the key link in at least three of the tries before being removed as a precaution with a dead leg. Doris was immense at No8 and Jordan Larmour is now, unequivocally, the first-choice full-back ahead of Rob Kearney.

Larmour’s partnership with Lowe is potentially lethal and should be replicated in green jerseys when the Kiwi qualifies for Ireland in 2020. Then there is the stream of young players eager to build on the opportunities that were afforded them during the World Cup.

All these riches and rewards have raised grumblings, again, about the perceived advantages enjoyed by the provinces who can afford to rest front-line stars in PRO14 rounds while theEnglish sides have to knock seven shades out of each other on a weekly basis in thePremiership.

Biggar even slagged Sexton about it after the game in Franklin’s Gardens nine days ago when he joked that it was good to cross paths with their clubs for a change, but there are serious questions being asked about structures and a British and Irish league has again been mentioned.

Biggar, as a Welshman with an English club, seemed an appropriate man to ask about that. “As a player, the reason I moved to the Prem and to this club was to be involved in the best competition and I don’t don’t think there is too much wrong with our Premiership at the minute.

“There are competitive games every week and packed house every single week.”

LEINSTER: J Larmour; D Kearney, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J Lowe; R Byrne, L McGrath; C Healy, J Tracy, T Furlong; S Fardy, J Ryan; R Ruddock, J van der Flier, C Doris.

Replacements: E Byrne for Healy (blood, 14-20); C Frawley for R Byrne (48); A Porter for Furlong (51); B Byrne for Tracy and E Byrne for Healy (both 54); M Deegan for van der Flier and J Gibson-Park for McGrath (both 61); R Kearney for Henshaw (62); D Toner for Fardy (69).

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS: A Tuala; O Sleightholme, M Proctor, A Symons, T Naiyarovo; D Biggar, C Tupai; F van Wyk, M van Vuuren, P Hill, A Ratuniyarawa, A Coles; T Wood, J Gibson, L Ludlam.

Replacements: L Bean for Coles (HIA, 4); S Matavesi for van Vuuren and F Dingwall for Symons (both 51); A Waller for van Wyk (59); J Mitchell for Tupai (61); J Grayson for Biggar (63); E Painter for Hill (66); JJ Tonks for Bean (73).

Referee: D Jones (Wales).