AS RACING 92 boss Laurent Travers watched his team being picked apart by Leinster yesterday, he got a sense that La Rochelle have made life more difficult for everyone in Europe this season.
‘Toto’ sensed from the early stages that it wasn’t going to be Racing’s day. His side were wildly indisciplined at the start of the game and Leinster had a try within four minutes. The four-time European champions never really let up from there.
A 42-10 bonus-point win was thoroughly deserved as Leinster showed their steely determination to add a fifth Champions Cup title this season. Travers believes they are the outright favourites to do so.
“They are truly the favourites,” he said post-match at Stade Océane.
“Last season they lost the final against La Rochelle, who played very well up front in the forwards battle and defended strongly to put them in difficulty.
“That defeat to La Rochelle last season was positive for them. They learned from it and today you saw the level of play from their forwards. I think their forwards are truly ready and we saw that today.”
Travers’ counterpart, Leo Cullen, brushed aside the notion that Leinster were motivated to make a statement yesterday on their first visit to France since losing last season’s final to Marseille.
But that defeat, as well as the URC semi-final loss to the Bulls, has this squad more motivated than ever. The past two weekends have shown us that Leinster are ready to be ruthless. They are intent on overcoming any potential roadblocks as they seek trophies.
That’s why they brushed aside Cian Healy’s red card against Ulster and then somehow turned Friday’s travel chaos into a positive. Listening to them talk about their 16-hour journey from Dublin to Le Havre, you’d almost swear they had planned it all that way.
There was no looking for excuses, only positive vibes. That attitude allowed Leinster to make their brilliant start yesterday and they never let up.
While Cullen and Stuart Lancaster will pick out a few flaws in the performance, it was largely superb. When you’re pointing to a 75th-minute consolation try for Racing as one of the big negatives, you know it was a good day.
They defended excellently and Leinster also appear to be building even more variety in their attack. They scored six different tries against Racing, delivering at the maul, with a first-phase lineout strike, and via other means too. A lovely five-metre tap penalty routine for Josh van der Flier’s first try was among the highlights.
“I dunno, it might even be Scott Penny who would credit himself there,” said Cullen of where that score came from.
“It’s quite similar to the try the Bulls scored against us, so it might have been plaigarised off someone else. Josh finished incredibly well.”
With a good kicking game thrown into the mix, they are very difficult to defend against.
As important yesterday was the scrum, which earned three penalties and a few free-kicks for Leinster even without the missing Tadhg Furlong, while the lineout was also sharp.
“There was really good intent,” said Cullen of the set-piece effort. “You think of Andrew Porter getting over for his try [from a maul]. In the scrum battle, we wanted to go after them and that’s credit to Robin [McBryde] and all the forwards, they did a great job this week.
“We had Cian [Healy] shifting across to tighthead, the bench gave a lot of energy and Ed Byrne got in for a try. So it really laid the foundation for the win and it’s a big kudos to all the people involved. It needs to be the same again next week because Gloucester are a big set-piece-oriented team, particularly with their lineout maul.”
That’s typical Cullen, calmly praising the performance and turning the attention to the next game. More removed from the media spotlight, Lancaster – a penny for his thoughts on Racing – has clearly been busy adding more strings to Leinster’s bow.
As Cullen pointed out post-match, the Leinster players are also taking matters into their own hands and not waiting around to be led. With Johnny Sexton missing, Garry Ringrose has stepped into the captaincy role with aplomb.
As ever, the last third of this season will allow us to more accurately assess Leinster but the most recent evidence suggests that this is a team that could do some special things.
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Originally published at 07.30