LEINSTER COACH MATT O’Connor isn’t a doctor but he didn’t need to study medicine to know that Ben Te’o was going to miss significant time after injuring his arm during his first carry as a Leinster player.
You really couldn’t make it up – all that optimisim around Te’o as Brian O’Driscoll’s successor gone after just one touch of the ball. O’Connor was noticeably disappointed with the turn of events despite Leinster’s five-try 33-8 win over Edinburgh at the RDS tonight.
“He is having an x-ray now so we should know more in a couple of days,” O’Connor said.
“I’m not a doctor but it doesn’t look great. It is part of the game but it is difficult when you are a new player who is trying to assimilate to a new code.
“Thankfully he has a good big game temperament. The positives are that he can take a look at the game and try to study it a bit. He is going to get the greatest learning from playing and that is the most frustrating thing.
“He is still finding his feet and learning players names. He is still trying to learn the nuances of the games but he wouldn’t be here if we didn’t see things previously. It doesn’t change anything but it does put it back a few weeks or a few months.”
Leinster took control early on through two tries from the impressive Jack Conan and man of the match Dominic Ryan. Kevin McLaughlin somehwhat hyperbolically referred to Conan as Jamie Heaslip’s potential successor but the young no 8 played up to that title as he consistently made yardage all night.
“He looks pretty comfortable out there, doesn’t he?,” O’Connor said.
“He has played a lot of AIL and the more he plays out there for us the better he gets. He is going to be important for us moving forward. He is lacking a bit of experience but that will come.”
O’Connor also enjoyed being asked about Luke Fitzgerald’s ‘match sharpness’ or lack thereof.
“I thought he was pretty sharp,” O’Connor said with a smile.
“He beat people for fun out there and he played very well.”
Arguably the biggest plus for O’Connor on the night – besides the bonus point – was the performance of the Leinster scrum, who responded well after last week’s shellacking against Castres. Tadhg Furlong was the cornerstone of the solid forward effort, and it was a timely performance from the Wexford tighthead after being mentioned by Joe Schmidt during the week as being possibly in line for a national call-up.
“Tadhg is very, very good,” O’Connor said.
“There is no doubt about how good a footballer he will be but he is still a young man. He is still getting his head around the scrum and the static bits of the game at the top level. We have to be patient with Tadhg.
“They were a different beast [scrum this week vs last week]. It was a good platform for us and when the young guys came on at the end I thought we gained dominance and put them under a fair bit of pressure.”
