DAN SHEEHAN AND Jason Jenkins both made a good stab at it, but there was no taking the spotlight off Stuart Lancaster at the RDS last night.
A few hours before Leinster but Benetton to the sword in Dublin 4, French media reported that Lancaster had already signed a four-year deal to join Racing 92 at the end of the season.
Leo Cullen was about the only person inside the ground who didn’t want to talk about it. The Leinster head coach told TG4 that he could offer “nothing official” on the reports, and again declined to comment on Lancaster’s future during his post-match press conference with the written word media.
Lancaster is due to face the media himself on Monday afternoon. It would be highly surprising if the situation hasn’t been cleared up by then.
His departure will be a significant blow, but despite already losing two members of their coaching staff since the end of last season – backs coach Felipe Contepomi and contact skills coach Denis Leamy – the province look to have recruited well.
New attack coach Andrew Goodman is a quality addition from the Crusaders while Seán O’Brien is already putting his own stamp on the position Leamy vacated by taking a more central role around the squad during the week.
On the playing roster, Jenkins looks exactly like the type of athlete Leinster have been missing. It’s early days yet for him in a Leinster shirt but last night Jenkins showed flashes of just why the province were so keen to snap him up from Munster. He was aggressive, he carried hard and was a nuisance at the set-piece – effortlessly pinching one first-half lineout off Benetton fingertips.
“Particularly in the tight play, in terms of game-style the way we would play is probably a little bit different to what he’s used to, so it’s going to take him a bit of time,” said Cullen.
But lots of good moments in terms of some of the close exchanges in particular. You can see even the maul as well, the impact that he has there, and it’s such an important facet of the game now.
“Hopefully Jason will kick on and go from strength to strength.”
Jenkins was the stand-out player on the night despite hooker Dan Sheehan crossing for four tries in the 42-10 win, including a first-half hat-trick, adding the finishing touches to some driving mauls where Leinster were able to assert their dominance up front.
“I’m not sure I scored four tries in my whole career,” Cullen continued. “He did it and was taken off with 30 to go!”
“Dan, he’s very dynamic in lots of aspects of the game. Clearly, the forwards laid a pretty good platform for him on a few of those drives. But yeah, he’s looked sharp. Even Rónan (Kelleher) was good when he came on too, I thought he looked pretty sharp as well. Those guys are pushing each other on, which is great to see.”
One concern was the sight of Ciarán Frawley leaving the pitch early in the second half, having shipped a knock to his shoulder earlier in the game. Frawley, who was making a rare start at 10 for Leinster, will be assessed before the Emerging Ireland squad depart for South Africa tomorrow.
“Plenty of good touches,” Cullen said of Frawley. “There was a lot of good play in the first half, but we got ourselves in trouble a little bit, and I think it’s to be expected at this time of the year. We’ve a lot of new combinations out there, overall we’re pleased.
“Overall, that’s the big challenge, guys coming back in, coming up against a Benetton team who have had two or three games in some cases, and had a big win last week.
“I know they made some big changes off the team who played last week, but they’ve a big squad as well. I thought the attitude was the big thing. Garry Ringrose led the team this week, he’s a quieter figure naturally, but all the lads have so much respect for him, and he led the team very well.”
Next up for Leinster is a trip to Belfast next weekend. It’s shaping up to be an intriguing fixture, but one suspects it won’t be the first topic put to Lancaster when he sits down in front of the dictaphones on Monday.
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
