ISAAC BOSS SAYS Leinster will be wary of a Scarlets backlash when the sides meet in the Heineken Cup on Saturday afternoon.
The European champions opened their title defence with a nervy win against the Exeter Chiefs last weekend while Scarlets were made to pay the price for Morgan Stoddart’s first-half red card, crashing to a 49-16 defeat at Clermont Auvergne.
Boss needs no reminder of his most recent trip to Parc y Scarlets, last month’s Pro12 meeting which the Welsh side won comfortably 45-20. The New Zealander was subbed off at half-time with an arm injury but is in contention for a return having come through half an hour for Leinster “A” in the British & Irish Cup last weekend with no further setbacks.
Both sides will be disappointed with their opening round performances, Boss says, and Leinster won’t be taking a wounded Scarlets lightly.
“They’re a very strong side and they’ve already done a job on us this year so we’ll be wary of that.
“We really need to step up and they’ll be hurting as well [after] losing by 30 points. They’ve got big aspirations in Europe so it’s going to be a tough one and we’ll really need to step up.
They’ve had a couple of losses they won’t be happy about, same as us, but all of that gets parked when you come to Europe. It’s just the next match. We want to stay in Europe and they want to get their foot back in the door after the first match. There’s going to be a bit of an edge about it.
Saturday’s win takes Leinster’s run to five in six games since their defeat against the Scarlets but the manner of the victory has left the province with plenty to chew on before Saturday, the scrum-half adds.
“Obviously it was a bit of a mixed bag. We kept them tryless and we probably had to make the most tackles we’ve made all season, so that was good on our behalf.
“But we didn’t really create too many chances or finish off any, so we were pretty disappointed with our attack and we definitely need to step it up.
“Credit to them, they came to play and they had a lot of the ball and we had to make a lot of tackles. They kept it away from us very well and we couldn’t get it off them.”
