The circumstances of Declan Kidney's arrival in Leinster via, fleetingly, the Dragons, allied to the return of Brian O'Driscoll and co, are likely to galvanise home players and public alike. Leinster are arguably the biggest draw around, especially when near to full-strength, and perhaps the biggest scalp. They must seem like that to the Dragons right now.
"I am looking forward to going back actually," said Kidney yesterday. "They're very good people in Newport. Jim McCreedy, the manager there, and the players I met, and Andy Marinos, and especially Tony Brown. He rang me eight or nine days ago saying he was looking forward to us meeting up again. Tony Brown was very generous in facilitating my move here, he knew it was for family reasons and that I'd worked with the players here before."
The warmth is reciprocal.
"There are no hard feelings," said the Dragons' lock Ian Gough. "He's a good guy and we can appreciate the reason he had for going back. He was man enough to tell us all face to face, which is a hard thing to do."
In Kidney's stead, the Dragons didn't have too many options at such a late juncture and boldly opted for Chris Anderson. There's no more decorated rugby league coach around than the 2000 World Cup-winning Aussie.
The Dragons could yet be anything but so far, so good. They circled over the Warriors and captured Welsh half-backs Gareth Cooper and Ceri Sweeney, who has hit the ground running with 12 kicks out of 13 to date. Having been caught a little cold by Cardiff in round two, they've bounced back with a shut-out of Llanelli and a bonus-point win at previously unbeaten Glasgow.
Meetings between these two tend to be frisky, high-scoring affairs. Last season, the two clashes yielded 144 points and 18 tries, with particular fun and games coming on the last night of the season, when Leinster belatedly responded to the much-publicised divisions within the camp about Gary Ella's one-year reign and the Dragons' four-try salvo in the opening quarter.
One intriguing match-up sees Percy Montgomery recalled at outside centre in direct opposition to Brian O'Driscoll.
"When you have the likes of Percy Montgomery playing against the likes of Brian O'Driscoll, I don't see anything wrong with a league that shows that quality," observed Kidney.
Since becoming the Dragons, the Welsh side has won 12 out of 12 games at home, while Leinster's line-up is ring rusty. "We have 40 per cent of our team playing their first match of the season against a team who are playing their fourth or fifth match of the season together and that presents difficulties in terms of co-ordination and what can be expected of them," says Kidney.
Kidney plays down expectations regarding Leinster in light of their unbeaten start, maintaining people were "getting carried away". But, with the set-pieces liable to hold the key, if the big names up front settle into the old routine at lineout time, they have the quality out wide to heighten expectations even more.
DRAGONS: K Morgan; G Wyatt, P Montgomery, S Tuipulotu, N Brew; C Sweeney, G Cooper; R Snow, S Jones, R Thomas, I Gough, P Sidoli, R Bryan, M Owen (capt), J Ringer. Replacements: _ J Richards, A Black, C Anthony, R Beattie, R Oakley, S Winn, G Baber.
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; S Horgan, B O'Driscoll, C Warner, G Brown; F Contepomi, G Easterby; R Corrigan (Capt), S Byrne, R Nebbett, M O'Kelly, B Gissing, E Miller, V Costello, S Jennings. Replacements: _ P Coyle, AN Other, C Potts, D Dillon, K Lewis, B O'Meara, D Hickie.
Referee: Rob Dickson (SRU).
Previous meetings: ('03-'04) CL - Dragons 35 Leinster 14; Leinster 56 Dragons 39. ('02-'03) CL - Leinster 42 Newport 14. ('01-'02) EC - Leinster 21 Newport 6; Newport 21, Leinster 26; CL (qf) - Leinster 34 Newport 22.
Formguide: Dragons - Idle; 8-18 v Cardiff (a); 15-0 v Llanelli (h); 38-39 v Glasgow (a). Leinster - 9-9 v Cardiff (h); 26-15 v Ulster (a); 17-15 v Munster (h); 50-13 v Borders (h).
Leading try scorers: Dragons - Wyatt, Morgan, Cooper, Snow, Ringer 1 each. Leinster - Gary Brown 4, James Norton 3.
Leading points scorers: Dragons - Ceri Sweeney 33. Leinster - Brian O'Meara 23.
Forecast: Leinster to win.
