Connacht left with nothing after controversial try
Connacht 0
Leinster 13
THE nil on the scoreboard is certainly a worry. Leinster will feel as though they made a bit of a statement on New Year’s Day. The men from the west had been making noise while their counterparts from Dublin had been shipping criticism, but this win in dreadful conditions at the RDS completed a brilliant Christmas period for Leo Cullen’s Leinster.
To tell the tale of this contest we need to dwell for a minute on the strength of this Leinster side as it will inform the real question on everyone’s mind. Have Connacht lost their way or are they still on track to make major progress by the end of this third campaign in the Pat Lam era?
The blues had a big win away to Munster leading into this contest and thanks to this 13-0 triumph leapfrogged Connacht in the standings with their ninth win in 11Pro 12 outings. Hardly a crisis in Leinster then, especially when you consider the young players on show here who are making huge progress such as Gary Ringrose, Josh Van Der Flier, Peter Dooley and Ross Moloney.
Those names are mixing in with a strong established core. Sure at international level major questions still have to be answered by the likes of Dave Kearney, Jordi Murphy and Martin Moore but in the Pro 12, these lads pack some punch.
The enforcers are there too, Mike McCarthy lorded it over his former team-mates in this one, frustrating, hassling, earning penalties and making a general nuisance of himself. Sean O’Brien burst off the bench and all but helped seal the win for good measure. Connacht lost away from home to a team that have more depth, more star talent and, perhaps, most worryingly more effective agitators.
Yet the nil on the scoreboard has to rankle most of all at the end of this. The fact that Connacht’s efforts over the 80 minutes, on balance, would have probably yielded a losing bonus point had we been treated to a more accurate and competent refereeing performance then we got from George Clancy here will rankle too, but will be forgotten come season’s end.
Clancy had a shocker in the second half after a solid first half display. Connacht’s advantage in the scrum yielded nothing but one penalty against and some odd ‘no calls’. Two key knock-ons were spotted and deemed incorrectly to have gone backwards while the hugely questionable Leinster try from Josh Van Der Flier drew national attention for how it was called by the experienced official.
None of that should negate the fact that Leinster were better here in the second half. They deserved their win based on their use of possession against the wind, numerous line breaks and effective offloads, support lines of running and disruptive work at the breakdown. Connacht lost all those battles and misfired in the lineouts for good measure.
Full match report in this week's Connacht Tribune