Leinster 56 (82)
Connacht 20 (41)
JUST IN CASE anyone needed a reminder of how good this Leinster team are, here it was. Connacht simply couldn’t live with them as Leo Cullen’s men ran in eight tries at the Aviva Stadium.
Leinster underlined their status as trophy contenders in front of a crowd of 32,604 in Dublin as they blasted their way into the Champions Cup quarter-finals, where they look likely to have to travel to take on Leicester on the weekend of 6/7/8 May.
To be fair, Cullen’s side will get a far greater test of their quality in Welford Road but their performance in the beautiful April sunshine today was slick, tidy, accurate, and overwhelmingly dominant in the second leg of their Round of 16 tie.
Player of the match James Lowe bagged four tries, Robbie Henshaw scored a double, while Jamison Gibson-Park and Tadhg Furlong added tries of their own in a performance that was cleverly guided by their captain supreme, Johnny Sexton.
Connacht were miles off the pace and didn’t help their cause with two yellow cards. Bundee Aki could have even seen red in the first half for a dangerous, needless late hit on Sexton, while sub prop Jack Aungier was binned in the second for a sloppy clearout that saw him make contact with Josh van der Flier’s head.
That second sin-binning saw Connacht reduced to 13 players for eight minutes on account of the same infamous uncontested scrum law that produced farcical scenes in Ireland’s Six Nations game against Italy this year.
The truth is that even when they had 15 players on the pitch, Connacht were a very clear second best. Leinster’s attack was razor-sharp from set-piece and in phase play, they enjoyed scrum dominance, and their players all delivered excellent performances.
While they will have been frustrated to concede three tries, their defence was oppressive at times. They could have had a yellow card of their own in the first half when Hugo Keenan took out Tiernan O’Halloran in the air but this was a very impressive showing overall.
Cullen and Stuart Lancaster’s men are thoroughly determined to climb back to the top of the European pile and that possible quarter-final against Leicester, who carry a 29-10 lead into their home second leg against Clermont tomorrow, would be enthralling.
Meanwhile, Connacht must now rally themselves before flying out this Sunday on a two-game tour to South Africa in the URC, looking like they need a miracle to get a play-off spot in the league.
There have been some encouraging highs this season but the campaign is in danger of simply petering out now.
The westerners actually made a promising start to the game to lead 3-0 early on, while Leinster fullback Keenan was probably lucky to avoid a yellow card his challenge on opposite number O’Halloran, but Jack Carty missed a second penalty shot at goal from out on the right and the home side belatedly sprang into life with a stunning 11th-minute try.
Keenan defused a Carty bomb outside his own 22 on the left and Leinster fluidly shifted the ball wide right through the hands of Sexton, Lowe, Jimmy O’Brien, and Henshaw to send lock Josh Murphy racing up the right-hand touchline. He fired a pass back inside to Lowe, who found Gibson-Park scorching up on his inside to finish.
A jackal turnover penalty from Andrew Porter and a massive scrum penalty allowed Leinster to keep the foot down, leading towards Henshaw grabbing their second try. This time, Leinster struck from a close-range maul, with Lowe tipping on a lovely delayed pass to Henshaw, who battered straight through Aki to score.
The entertaining Mack Hansen soon threw a heart-in-the-mouth offload just in front of his own tryline to get out of trouble after a clever Leinster kick, with Cullen’s men keeping the pressure firmly on.
Their third score came from a clever lineout play as the impressive van der Flier broke off a dummy maul and popped an inside pass to Lowe, who powered forward and slickly offloaded back to the flanker. Big carries from Furlong and Rónan Kelleher ensued before Furlong bashed over from close-range with a latch by Ross Molony.
Aki made life even more difficult for Connacht with his yellow card for a dangerous hit on Sexton after the Leinster captain had passed the ball. It was missed live by referee Luke Pearce but a TMO review left him with little option but to card the Connacht centre. The question was whether it should be yellow or red, with a case to be made for the latter.
Aki’s head collided with Sexton’s but Pearce felt the initial contact was onto Sexton’s body and that it hadn’t been a high danger hit.
Off to the bin went Aki and Leinster scored again almost immediately. Having dusted himself off, Sexton played a stunning inside pass to Lowe after Henshaw had pulled the ball back to his out-half. Lowe broke through and then finished superbly despite the efforts of Tom Farrell and Conor Oliver to hold him up.
Sexton added his fourth successful conversion and though Connacht had a late chance to score before the break, they were wasteful again as Leinster’s defence impressed and Cian Prendergast knocked on.
Leinster led 28-3 at the break, 54-24 on aggregate, and extended that big lead inside 63 seconds of the restart with Connacht still down to 14 men.
A loose Connacht offload was snaffled by O’Brien and then hooker Kelleher broke through the middle before O’Brien got back on the ball and went close to scoring in the right corner. Leinster stayed calm and passes from Gibson-Park, Sexton, and Garry Ringrose sent Henshaw over to the left of the uprights. Sexton added the extras again.
Connacht lost tighthead prop Finlay Bealham to an unfortunate bit of friendly fire soon after Henshaw’s second try but with Aki returning from the sin bin, they did finally muster a response on the scoreboard.
Leinster’s discipline slipped to invite Connacht into their 22 and once they got within striking range, a nice Carty pass out the back of Aki sent O’Halloran in for the try and a 35-8 scoreline.
But any sniff of a Connacht revival was short-lived as replacement tighthead Jack Aungier was yellow-carded for hitting van der Flier’s head with his shoulder at a breakdown, Pearce again feeling it wasn’t a high-danger collision.
The yellow card meant that Connacht had to drop down to 13 players as uncontested scrums came in, the Aviva Stadium seeing a repeat of the same bizarre law that featured in Ireland’s Six Nations win over the Italians this year.
It didn’t take long for Leinster to take full advantage as Ross Molony link passed superbly, Sexton released Ringrose on a searing linebreak, then the outside centre threw a stunning long pass out to Lowe on the left, and the Leinster wing danced past the final three defenders for his second.
Sexton kept up his 100% success rate off the tee in what was his last action of the day before making way for Ross Byrne.
Restored to 15 men as Aungier’s 10-minute yellow card period concluded, Connacht had a successful visit into Leinster territory with the game edging into the final quarter, replacement back Sammy Arnold the man to force his way over from three metres out.
But Leinster weren’t finished just yet and Lowe sealed his hat-trick in the 66th minute, benefitting from an excellent van der Flier link pass out the back to Byrne from a lineout play, with the out-half dummying to break and then freeing Lowe to cross wide on the right. Byrne slotted the conversion too.
Connacht showed some fight to eke out a third try through sub back row Abraham Papali’i, with Carty nailing his most difficult conversion after earlier misses off the tee.
Lowe’s fourth score arrived in the final minute as Byrne picked out space in behind Connacht and clipped a very smart kick through their defence, the ball bouncing up for his left wing to put the icing on the cake with a converted try.
Leinster scorers:
Tries: Jamison Gibson-Park, Robbie Henshaw [2], Tadhg Furlong, James Lowe [4]
Conversion: Johnny Sexton [6 from 6], Ross Byrne [2 from 2]
Connacht scorers:
Tries: Tiernan O’Halloran, Sammy Arnold, Abraham Papali’i
Conversion: Jack Carty [1 from 3]
Penalties: Jack Carty [1 from 2]
LEINSTER: Hugo Keenan; Jimmy O’Brien, Garry Ringrose (Ciarán Frawley ’67), Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe; Johnny Sexton (captain) (Ross Byrne ’57), Jamison Gibson-Park (Luke McGrath ’64); Andrew Porter (Ed Byrne ’51), Rónan Kelleher (Dan Sheehan ’51), Tadhg Furlong (Michael Ala’alatoa ’51); Ross Molony, Josh Murphy (Devin Toner ’57); Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan (Rhys Ruddock ’37).
CONNACHT: Tiernan O’Halloran (Conor Fitzgerald ’61); John Porch, Tom Farrell (Sammy Arnold ’44), Bundee Aki (yellow card ’35), Mack Hansen; Jack Carty (captain), Caolin Blade (Kieran Marmion ’60); Matthew Burke (Denis Buckley ’44), Dave Heffernan (Jonny Murphy ’61), Finlay Bealham (Jack Aungier ’44 (yellow card ’49)); Gavin Thornbury (Oisín Dowling ’44), Leva Fifita; Cian Prendergast, Conor Oliver (off temporarily during Aungier’s yellow card ’52 to ’60), Jarrad Butler (Matthew Burke ’52 to ’60) (Abraham Papali’i ’60).
Referee: Luke Pearce [RFU].