THAT OLD RELIABLE fall-back credo, one game at a time, was put aside briefly by Leinster this week as senior coach Stuart Lancaster showed his players the Pro14 standings and fixture schedule for the weeks ahead.
There’s no getting away from it, there is a pivotal point of the campaign in sight.
The next three weekends present enormous opportunity for one of the Pro14 B Conference leaders to assert their dominance and build a buffer.
Reigning champions Scarlets come to Dublin for a summit meeting this afternoon (KO 3.15pm, Sky Sports) and the sides need only wait another fortnight before clashing again in the return fixture in Llanelli.
Set for down weeks in the Six Nations, these head-to-heads will be a test of depth given both sides are heavy suppliers to their respective national teams.
Even so, Leinster must fancy their resources to power them out of last weekend’s late loss in Edinburgh and Leo Cullen’s stocks have been boosted by the return of Sean Cronin, Jordan Larmour and Jordi Murphy from international camp.
And while Joey Carbery is the most surprising absentee to be held back from Pro14 duty by Joe Schmidt, with the Southern Kings to come in between Scarlets clashes (while Wayne Pivac’s men host Ulster) this four-game window could yet provide a very valuable return.
“The two games against Scarlets will have a huge bearing on who comes top of the Conference,” Lancaster said in the Intercontinental Hotel on Monday.
“Our run-in: we’ve got Ospreys, into the quarter-final (v Saracens) and beyond them Zebre and Treviso at home. So we’ve got tough games to come but equally these games against Scarlets back-to-back are going to be very important.”
Fixtures of this pedigree would be far more tantalising if they were scheduled at a safe distance from international windows of course. But these off-Broadway Pro14 rounds regularly toss up intriguing story-lines and breakthrough performances.
During this point of the season last year, Leinster coasted through their four-game run while averaging 44.5 points per game. Carbery shone after switching to fullback during the run, and Cullen has preferred him in that position ever since. Adam and Ross Byrne linked brilliantly on cross-field kicks, now the wing has a Test cap and the out-half is almost an ever-present for his province.
“It’s for the players who may not have got a look in earlier in the season to put their hand up,” says second row Ross Molony, who will complement the veteran talents of Scott Fardy in the engine room tomorrow.
“The international players are going to come back eventually. And it’s just about giving the coaches that tough decision where you’ve performed over that block and you’re not just going to hand that jersey back over easily.”
Obviously, the team-sheets bear little resemblance to Scarlets’ enthralling 14-man semi-final win over Leinster last May. Yet as one of three surviving Leinster starters, Molony admits there is a scent of vengeance about the fixture.
A lot of the players in our review this morning (Monday) probably wouldn’t have played in that game, they don’t have the experience of that. But for us it’s about driving that message that this is about us getting revenge, it’s about us not allowing a team to come to the RDS and beat us, and it’s a great opportunity for everyone.”
The opportunity goes two ways of course, and having set the pace all season Scarlets will be loathe to be cut adrift.
10 starting Welsh internationals is a difficult hurdle to get over, but the man falling between the stools of national selection policy, Tadhg Beirne is fit and raring to go again against his native province before a summer move to Munster.
The Kildare man’s rise to prominence comes as no surprise to Molony, who can recall his eye being drawn by a fellow powerful lock as a schoolboy. Molony stood in the stands clad in light blue, Beirne was on the field for Clongowes Wood as they defeated St Michael’s in the 2010 Senior Cup final.
Their paths certainly crossed in Leinster too. Molony’s promise, along with the imminent arrival of Ian Nagle, were among the reasons Beirne was deemed surplus to requirements and was instead set on a path to glory through west Wales.
“He’s been brilliant, he has really had a couple of great seasons over there. He was on 20 turnovers before the Benetton game, and I saw him get at least three, so he’s really putting a marker down and like last year I’m sure he’s looking to come over and make his mark at the RDS.
“He’s able to get over (the ball), get a low body height, which is obviously really impressive.
“He’s obviously been put into a pretty powerful back row there as well with (James) Davies, who is also brilliant over the ball, but probably over the weekend that’s somewhere we’re looking to target.
“We have to beat them at the breakdown, they probably got the upper hand on us there when we played them in previous games so that’s going to be a real focus for us this week.”
Leinster:
15. Jordan Larmour
14. Adam Byrne
13. Rory O’Loughlin
12. Noel Reid
11. James Lowe
10. Ross Byrne
9. Luke McGrath (captain)
1. Ed Byrne
2. Sean Cronin
3. Michael Bent
4. Ross Molony
5. Scott Fardy
6. Josh Murphy
7. Jordi Murphy
8. Max Deegan
Replacements:
16. Richardt Strauss
17. Peter Dooley
18. Oisín Heffernan
19. Ian Nagle
20. Will Connors
21. Nick McCarthy
22. Ciarán Frawley
23. Barry Daly
Scarlets:
15. Johnny McNicholl
14. Tom Prydie
13. Paul Asquith
12. Steff Hughes (captain)
11. Ioan Nicholas
10. Dan Jones
9. Jonathan Evans
1. Dylan Evans
2. Ryan Elias
3. Werner Kruger
4. Steve Cummins
5. David Bulbring
6. Tadhg Beirne
7. James Davies
8. Josh Macleod
Replacements:
16. Emyr Phillips
17. Phil Price
18. Simon Gardiner
19. Lewis Rawlins
20. Will Boyde
21. Declan Smith
22. Corey Baldwin
23. Tom Williams
