Leinster 20 Benetton Treviso 8
Baby steps, and there’ll assuredly be more exacting visitors to the RDS this season, but Leinster’s opening night in the Guinness Pro12 suggested clear signs of a more adventurous approach this season as well as a winning start.
The RDS being ready for the opening weekend for the first time since 2007, so Leinster safely negotiated only their second round one win in nine years, and on an idyllic early-season evening for rugby on a nicely manicured pitch, they were full of running rugby.
In that sense, the signals from their pre-season performances confirmed the impression that Graham Henry’s imprint may have extended to their brand of rugby as well as their coaching organisation and culture.
Leinster made almost 200 passes on the night, moving the ball and across the pitch while probing at various points, and also looking to counter-attack and offload.
But they perhaps could have found more of a balance and earned the right to go wide by making harder yards inside occasionally first, their set-piece was imperfect and they weren’t helped by an 11-6 penalty count against them.
Other positive notes were the brace of tries and touches of class shown by Joey Carbery on his debut, as well as signs that there’s plenty of life left yet in Cian Healy, who got through a solid 47 minutes of work, and Rob Kearney, who looked fit and full of running. Josh van der Flier was another stand-out performer.
It was a loose, scatty affair, with plenty of handling errors, turnovers and missed tackles, and under their new Kiwi coach Kieran Crowley, Treviso were also full of positive running intentions and some nice shape off the training ground, albeit their basic handling skills too often betrayed them.
Whether it was down to the Henry influence or not, Leinster’s exit strategy from Treviso’s kick-off was straight out of the Connacht blueprint, Noel Reid making the first of his two early line breaks. With Kearney hitting the line, Fergus McFadden and Garry Ringrose (who curiously played on the wing with Zane Kirchner at outside centre) kept the move alive on either touchline, eventually Carbery sidestepped Luke McLean and took Giorgio Bronzini’s tackle to reach out for the line under the posts. Less than two and a half minutes in, it wasn’t a bad way to mark his full competitive debut, and better would follow.
Treviso weren’t helped by losing Alessandro Zanni, nor Tommaso Allan missing a straight 30 metre penalty, but they grew into the game. Their scrum upped the ante too but they turned over the ball when van der Flier was strong in the tackle, and from Carbery’s relieving kick, Dan Leavy forced his second turnover.
Although Luke McGrath’s passing briefly lost its radar and McFadden then passed loosely off the base, as so often happens everyone briefly froze. Carbery stooped to gather inside his own ten metre line, stepped away from one tackler, then accelerated between two more and suddenly was in the clear. Whereupon he stood up Jayden Hayward and beat him on the outside to score his second try in the corner. The lad has X factor alright.
However, after McFadden rewarded the Leinster scrum with a three-pointer, Carbery won’t enjoy the replay of his missed tackle on Allan a few minutes later which put Leinster on the back foot. When Brian Byrne stepped off his defensive pillar to tackle Bronzini, it left a hole which Healy and van der Flier couldn’t fill as Marco Fuser took the popped offload inside to plunder the try. Allan had another horrid miss with should have been a routine conversion, and so Leinster led 15-5 at the break rather than 15-10.
Leinster changed their entire front-row soon after the restart, stand-out Irish Under-20 loose-head Andrew Porter being introduced for his competitive debut along with ol’ man river Mike Ross. The latter was promptly pinged at the next scrum, before Luke McGrath was penalised for a side entry at a ruck and Allan managed to bisect the posts from less than 20 metres.
Amid the usual raft of replacements, cometh the hour a helpful temporary stoppage co-incided with the poignant return of the comeback king, Ian McKinley, and thus an extended and warm round of applause from his one-time home fans. It was a nice moment, and McKinley was quickly into his stride with some nice touches.
Not before time, the Leinster pack took matters into their own hand. Their scrum having won the penalty, from Jordi Murphy’s ensuing line-out take, the forwards drove 20 metres toward the Treviso line for replacement hooker James Tracy to plunge underneath two tackles for the try.
They nearly completed a bonus point with the game’s last play, a superb mix of lines and offloading involving competitive debutants Jamison Gibson-Park and Rory O’Loughlin, and the lively Ringrose, ended with O’Loughlin having the ball dislodged from his grasp.
Like the performance, far from perfect but encouraging.
Scoring sequence: 3 mins Carbery try, McFadden con 7-0; 27 mins Carbery try 12-0; 33 mins McFadden 38 mins Fuser try 15-5; (half-time 15-5); 51 mins Allan pen 15-8; 73 mins Tracy try 20-8.
LEINSTER: Rob Kearney; Zane Kirchner, Garry Ringrose, Noel Reid, Fergus McFadden; Joey Carbery, Luke McGrath (capt); Cian Healy, Bryan Byrne, Michael Bent, Ross Molony, Mike McCarthy, Dominic Ryan, Josh van der Flier, Dan Leavy. Replacements: James Tracy for Byrne, Andrew Porter for Healy, Mike Ross for Bent (all 47 mins), Hayden Triggs for McCarthy (58 mins), Jordi Murphy for Ryan, Jamison Gibson-Park for McGrath (both 65 mins), Rory O'Loughlin for R Kearney (76 mins). Not used : Cathal Marsh.
BENETTON TREVISO: Jayden Hayward, Angelo Esposito, Tommaso Benvenuti, Luke McLean, Andrea Buondonno; Tommaso Allan, Giorgio Bronzini; Nicola Quaglio, Ornel Gega, Simone Ferrari, Marco Fuser, Filo Paulo, Francesco Minto, Marco Lazzaroni, Alessandro Zanni (Capt). Replacements: Marco Barbini for Zanni (4 mins), Tiziano Pasquali for Ferrari (52 mins), Alberto De Marchi for Quaglio (54 mins), Edoardo Gori for Bronzini (58 mins), Dean Budd for Barbini (58-68 mins) and for Fuser (68 mins), Ian McKinley for Allan (60 mins), Roberto Santamaria dfor Gega (63 mins), David Odiete.
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (WRU).
