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Leinster's Rob Kearney speaking at yesterday's press conference. INPHO/James Crombie
danger man

Leinster don't fear George North - Rob Kearney

The Ireland star says marking his former Lions teammate is “manageable”.

ROB KEARNEY HAS said that Leinster are respectful but not fearful of Welsh winger George North ahead of the Irish side’s encounter away to Northampton this weekend.

Kearney, who played with North during the Lions tour, is hopeful they can keep the highly-rated star’s involvement in the game to a minimum.

“He’s obviously a world-class player and he’s developing every week it seems,” Kearney said. “But we played against him in the Heineken Cup last year against Scarlets and we managed him pretty well.

“He is manageable. It’s going to be a job for whoever’s marking him but certainly, you get into a space early, you try to shut him down as quickly as possible and you try to limit the amount of times that he does get the ball. And then you’re certainly giving yourself a good start.”

Moreover, did Kearney learn much about North as a player during their time together with the Lions?

“He’s pretty big,” he laughs. “He’s quick, he’s strong, but you do pick up little intricacies on how he likes to play. But that counts for very little when it’s all happening in front of you. The backroom staff are good at doing analysis and they know their little things that [the opposition] like to do — that’s part and parcel of preparation for big games now.”

The 27-year-old full-back expects a similarly tough challenge from the rest of North’s teammates and acknowledges that the two upcoming games will likely be crucial in determining Leinster’s fate in the Heineken Cup this year.

“They’re a champion side. They won some big competitions and they’re a big team. But we’ve been eyeing up these back-to-back games for a while now. It’s the one area where we suffered last year. It probably cost us progressing in the Heineken Cup. It’s something we’ve spoken about — the back-to-back games over Christmas are crucial if you want to progress in the tournament.

“Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less from them. They’ve been eyeing up these two games as an important part of their season, but so have we.”

The Irish international also dismissed the possibility of some of the Ireland players suffering a hangover from last week’s gut-wrenching defeat by New Zealand.

“It’s going to be one of the games that I’m sure will stick with some of the guys for a long time.

“There probably was an emotional high for a lot of guys. And I think that’s why it was important for some guys to get that little break last weekend. That’ll add a huge amount of value to those guys who are involved in the game. Certainly, what I’ve seen from everyone this week, everyone’s fueled up again and ready to go.”

And when asked to identify what went wrong for Leinster last year, Kearney pointed to player discipline — an aspect of their game he feels that the side have since improved upon — as a key issue.

“We were in the game, we scored enough tries and I think penalty count-wise is probably an area that cost us. Our discipline’s been pretty good this year.

“They were also a very good team so the margins are going to be pretty small. These next two weeks are going to be tight games — we just have to ensure we’re as close to our best as we can be.”

He also has no reservations about the choice of Nigel Owens to referee Saturday’s game.

“Nigel’s biggest strength is that he lets the game flow and he doesn’t want to get in the way and blow his whistle as much as he can. And that’s what we like as players — we want a free-flowing game. That’s one of our strengths as a team, if we can get that high tempo going.

“He has a huge amount of respect for this team and that’ll count for a lot.”

Additional reporting by Sean Farrell

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