A HIGH BAR has been set among Irish provinces.
Where once our teams would attack an English team like their lives depended on it, or looked quizzically and gulp at the sheer of the best France could offer; now they have the wherewithal to make such victories look almost routine.
If Leinster’s defeat of the French champions was not routine, it was certainly a win obtained without the need for the province’s finest work.
The problem for the head coach is a grumbling around the RDS that only minute glimpses of that work have been seen since he took over the reins.
“Two really tough games,” says Matt O’Connor points out of the wins over Ospreys and Castres in the ‘group of death’.
“To be on eight points is good for us. We’ve got some growth in us, but we’ll take those points and make sure we’re better next time.”
The Australian is entitled to be happy with his lot; Leinster, Ulster and Toulouse are the only clubs to have earned two wins from two in the competition.
There is time now to regroup and hopefully re-energise some key members of the starting XV when Leinster pick up the Heineken Cup tilt again with back-to-back clashes with Northampton. The Saints will hold little fear for this Leinster squad with or without their key leaders.
“It’s a leader-full group,” O’Connor contends to the suggestion that there was a lack of direction around his midfield.
“There are a lot of guys who care a lot about the place and I think that was on display in the last five-seven minutes when Castres got nothing.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to have a massive leadership issue when those guys have been in the system for a long time those guys know what it takes to win really big cup games and they brought that today.”
Two down, four to go. It’s certainly not beyond them.
