LEINSTER HEAD COACH Matt O’Connor insists his side are better than their first half display demonstrated as his side cruised to a 29-8 win.
Luke Fitzgerald was a rare shining light and capped off his man of the match performance with a try.
With the winger among a number of internationals returning from Ireland camp without having trained, there were difficulties around the park and his team will have to learn quickly from what O’Connor described as the “misguided effort” with a trip to the Ospreys to come next week.
“Lukey (Fitzgerald) is doing well, but again the combinations in the midfield; the two nines haven’t been with us for a couple of weeks. There was rustiness in that. Cian (Healy) was reintroducing himself to the players around him.
“There is a lot of things that we can be better at. The learning will be steep but it has to happen by next Friday.”
Zebre led 8-3 at the break despite replacing both their starting and replacement out-half. It was a first half which saw a Jimmy Gopperth missed penalty and a knock-on metres from the Zebre line among the missed opportunities.
“It was disappointing. We had several opportunities to score in the first half that we didn’t take that kept them in the contest and kept them semi-interested. The second-half performance was a little better but there were a lot of errors that played into their hands and their ability to slow the game down and take away the tempo.
“The five day turnaround, blokes not training, changes the dynamic slightly. They came to slow it down and play as little rugby as possible and not have the ball on the field. That was helped by us making errors. When you have that many stoppages, it is hard to get any momentum. We will dust ourselves off.”
Fergus McFadden, Dave Kearney and Luke Fitzgerald didn’t play any part in the opening two Six Nations game for Ireland. And despite failing to show what has been come to be expected of them at this level, O’Connor says an injury could propel them into contention with Ireland.
“Ferg, Luke and Dave are very, very close to being in the mix and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are injuries over the next couple of weeks with Ireland, that those blokes will be playing. Dave played all the games last year, was outstanding in the Six Nations.
“Luke has shown with us at 13 and out on the wing that he’s capable and Ferg was in that 23 a lot. They’re test standard players and they will be in the mix pretty soon.”