RUGBY:THERE WAS little to tell yesterday that Gordon D'Arcy and Jonathan Sexton had physical issues last weekend in Cardiff. The gilt-edged warhorse D'Arcy and the masterful tempo-fixer Sexton were both on the Leinster training paddock at UCD.

Mindful of the magnitude of this Saturday’s Heineken Cup round-five match on Sunday D’Arcy will undergo further scrutiny on Friday for a rib problem, while this year’s top points scorer in the competition on 60, Sexton, is all go for Glasgow and Firhill.

Leinster coach Joe Schmidt remains hopeful D’Arcy will hold up, while the rested Leo Cullen, Luke Fitzgerald, Shane Jennings, Ian Madigan, Eoin O’Malley, Rhys Ruddock and Richardt Strauss as well as the illness-stricken Damian Browne should also be in contention for the game that could secure a quarter-final.

Sexton was satisfied his tight hamstring will not be a distraction but the outhalf is slightly troubled about some aspects of Leinster’s play in recent weeks. Against Cardiff penalties were again an issue.

Boldly stylish and in control of Pool Three, Leinster are winning but far from flawed. Like having an irritating character in an otherwise engaging play, the abiding danger is the weakness might undo the lot.

“Yeah, my hamstring tightened up with about 20 minutes to go and I just said to the physio ‘it’s a little bit tight, no need to take me off’,” says Sexton. “But they just felt there was no need to take a risk.

“Results wise we are going well. There are a few aspects of our game Joe (Schmidt) is highlighting that are not up to scratch . . . and they have been week on week. The breakdown at times we’ve been a little inconsistent. That’s probably the main one.

“Our discipline hasn’t been great. They are the two main aspects. I suppose we have been concentrating on them because this weekend those will be key against Glasgow over in Firhill.”

For Sexton particularly, when he begins to kick the ball at Firhill he’ll look for adjustment. Far from the open plains of Aviva Stadium, where space lurks behind players and where there is latitude kicking to touch, the cramped soccer pitch in Glasgow requires his more calibrated boot.

The surface sometimes cuts up too and is weather dependent. Glasgow and Scottish rugby generally has been flexing in recent months and has provided Firhill with a growing reputation.

“You see some of the results they have had in the past in Heineken Cup,” says Sexton. “Even when they have been out of the competition they have turned over teams that have been trying to qualify. They are unbeaten since September, we’ve been just told by Joe. So it’s going to be a really tough game. We’ll be targeting the win as well to get the home quarter-final.

“I played there before. It is a tight pitch. I think it’s a soccer ground . Getting my bearings over there in terms of the kick, of just making sure I don’t kick them out on the full, things like that – kick them dead when normally you would have a little more room to work with – little things.”

Leinster’s reputation is broad and deep. The way they came back at Bath before Christmas; shredding the heaped odds against Northampton in last season’s final and the cutting edge the pack should provide, give the Irish province a credible fear factor.

But Sexton still needs convincing that such ethereal aspects of the package carry any real freight when the collisions start happening.

“I dunno,” he says. “They’ll be looking at us as a one-off. They’ll be looking at us as a scalp there for the taking and they will be really fired up. Their coach said that when they came to the RDS they got bullied at the breakdown. So I’m sure they are going to target that area.

“They will have seen a little bit of weakness there in our game for the last couple of weeks. I dunno if experience will count. They have players that have played a lot of big games for Scotland. They can use that experience.”

To name the starting Leinster team is embracing guesswork, to do it confidently is folly. There is no fixed 15. But with the long line of talented characters that have passed through, Sexton sees strength where the pessimist might see blighted continuity.

“We have specific combinations,” he says. “I think all the centres have played with each other, the half-backs have played with different 10s. We’re used to each other. So I think we’ll be okay.”

With Sexton it’s . . . well if he says so.