1. Leinster’s setpiece struggles
On paper it could hardly being going better for Leinster. Unbeaten this season, Saturday’s defeat of Gloucester was their third straight bonus point win in the Champions Cup and their 15th victory on the bounce.
From three Champions Cup pool games, they’ve scored 148 points and conceded just 24. As usual, most teams will want to avoid a trip to Dublin in the knockouts.
Yet it hasn’t all been perfect. At Kingsholm, Leinster had some issues at the scrum and Gloucester were able to cause them problems around the setpiece. The province conceded two penalty tries in incidents which saw referee Pierre Brousset send both Andrew Porter and Caelan Doris to the sin bin for collapsing the maul.
Scrum coach Robin McBryde won’t enjoy playing back the tape to examine the series of scrum penalties conceded after they had similar issues against Ospreys a week previously.
If Leinster are to go all the way in Europe this season, it’s an area in which they need to improve, as it’s one of the few places where teams are managing to really test the province.
The return of tighthead Tadhg Furlong and powerful lock Jason Jenkins will certainly help. Saturday’s setpiece struggles were a reminder of how key those two players could be further down the line.
- Ciaran Kennedy
*****
2. The good and the bad for Munster
Munster will view their performance through a microscopic lens on Monday morning and see plenty of good and bad.
Their intensity in the first-half proved unbearable for Northampton who looked to have been bereaved of any will to compete even during the 18 first-half minutes after Jack O’Donoghue’s red card.
Half-time, though, was always going to prove a turning point even at 24-0 because it gave Sam Vesty and co. the chance to shift their gameplan to make the numerical advantage count; exploiting the additional space in Munster’s backfield and targeting Munster’s suddenly compromised set piece.
Build pressure. Narrow the deficit. Turn the screw.
They so nearly did. Munster’s players will see during their video review that, at times in the second half, they made that process easier for the Saints, particularly in their management of the breakdown and the set piece.
But zoom out both from their excellent first-half attacking display, the disciplinary learnings from their second 40, and even their pulsating passages of defence at the death, and you’ll find the greatest intangible change at Munster since Graham Rowntree took the top job.
Northampton made it a seven-point game just before the hour mark and were in the ascendancy. Over the next six minutes, Rowntree made four substitutions. Joey Carbery, Jean Kleyn, Peter O’Mahony and Craig Casey made way. Rory Scannell, Alex Kendellen, John Hodnett and Paddy Patterson came in. Jack Crowley was shifted to out-half and Gavin Coombes moved up a row to lock.
With the game hanging in the balance and almost a full quarter remaining, Rowntree turned to a half-back pairing with an average age of 23 and just eight European appearances between them (most of them off the bench), and a two-man back row with an average age of 22.5 and just 17 appearances’ worth of combined experience at this level.
Crowley kicked the security score under pressure, Munster produced a few memorable stands with their backs to the wall, and a day with plenty of second-half negatives was turned into a net positive with an eye to both the immediate and long-term future.
- Gavan Casey
*****
3. Ulster’s half-back dilemma
Stick or twist? Dan McFarland backed 21-year-old Nathan Doak at scrum-half against La Rochelle and was rewarded with a composed performance in the relentless rain and swirling wind.
McFarland praised Doak for doing a “really good job in controlling the game” and must now decide whether to retain him against Sale this weekend or restore John Cooney, who was running the tee and water in La Rochelle. Cooney hasn’t been at his best in recent weeks but has proven his importance to Ulster in the past.
33-year-old Ian Madigan came straight back from injury into the starting number 10 shirt for the trip to France, where he was clearly fired up to make an impact, even giving up a penalty for his angry reaction to a tackle after the whistle on Doak.
Regular starter Billy Burns was due to be on the bench but was ruled out through injury just before kick-off, while Jake Flannery was also missing. Madigan had some nice touches with the boot and tackled well in a determined showing.
It will be intriguing to see if McFarland backs Doak and Madigan as his halfback pairing again for Saturday’s must-win clash with Sale.
- Murray Kinsella
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