Seven-try Leinster hammer Bulls at RDS
Leinster produced a powerful second half performance to get the better of Vodacom Bulls in a top-of-the-table United Rugby Championship clash at the RDS last night.
Eight days before facing Leicester Tigers in a European Champions Cup knockout game at the nearby Aviva Stadium, the Blues came from two points behind at the interval to score 35 unanswered points after the restart and ultimately open up a nine-point lead at the URC summit.
While Leinster named 14 players from Ireland’s successful Six Nations squad in their 23 – 10 of whom were included in their starting line-up – the Bulls were also able to call upon considerable test match experience for this Good Friday showdown.
A little over five months on from winning the Rugby World Cup alongside current Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber, Marco van Staden, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie and Willie Le Roux were listed amongst the visitors’ first 15 in the Ballsbridge venue.
Additionally, their fly-half Johan Goosen has represented the Springboks on 13 occasions in the past and he knocked over a brace of early penalties to set out the Bulls’ stall in this contest.
However, Leinster’s challenge finally came to life just shy of the first-quarter mark when the rejuvenated Jordan Larmour and Jamie Osborne combined to set up Josh van der Flier for a try underneath the posts.
A routine conversion to this score from Harry Byrne edged Leinster ahead for the first time and the eastern province looked set to take control of the proceedings when Ronan Kelleher finished off a line-out maul for an unconverted try.
Yet having found himself in acres of space on the right-wing, Arendse shrugged off a robust tackle from Leinster’s Luke McGrath at the end of a lung-bursting run on 35 minutes to dot down in spectacular style for the Bulls.
In the wake of Goosen’s wayward bonus strike, match referee Craig Evans was called to the big screen and opted to send McGrath to the sin-bin for what appeared to be a high challenge on the flying Springbok winger.
In the absence of their scrum-half, Leinster conceded a further penalty to Goosen and the Bulls on the stroke of 40 minutes and were ultimately staring into a 12-14 deficit at the break.
Although this threw down the gauntlet to Leo Cullen’s men in front of 16,892 spectators, their response on the resumption was both devastating and clinical. Just before being restored to their full compliment of players, Leinster developed an elongated multi-phase move that ended with James Lowe crossing over the whitewash via an outstanding Joe McCarthy offload.
Cullen elected to immediately introduce five players off the bench in the aftermath of this converted effort by Lowe and two of them had an instant impact on the game. Taking over from McGrath at scrum-half, Jamison Gibson-Park produced the final pass for Michael Milne to touch down to the right of the posts for his 12th try in just 35 appearances for Leinster.
This contribution from the Offaly native ensured that Leinster were to come away with a bonus point from this fixture, but with a return to European action on the horizon, they were in no mood to drop off in the closing stages of the play.
Dan Sheehan and player of the match Jack Conan capped their returns to provincial duty with tries in the 64th and 68th minutes respectively and after Arendse had a second score ruled out at the opposite end moments earlier, Liam Turner rounded off an impressive Easter display from Leinster with a five-pointer that was supplemented by a Ross Byrne bonus kick.
Tries – J van der Flier, R Kelleher, J Lowe, M Milne, D Sheehan, J Conan, L Turner. Cons – H Byrne (3), R Byrne (3).
Tries – K-L Arendse. Pens – J Goosen (3).
J Larmour; R Russell, R Henshaw, J Osborne, J Lowe; H Byrne, L McGrath; C Healy, R Kelleher, M Ala’alatoa; R Molony, J McCarthy; R Baird, J van der Flier, J Conan.
Replacements: D Sheehan for Kelleher, M Milne for Healy, T Furlong for Ala’alatoa, J Jenkins for Molony, J Gibson-Park for McGrath (all 46), L Turner for Henshaw (51), R Byrne for H Byrne (54), C Doris for van der Flier (67).
W Le Roux; K-L Arendse, C Moodie, D Kriel, D Williams; J Goosen, E Papier; G Steenekamp, A van der Merwe, W Louw; R Vermaak, R Nortje; M van Staden, E Louw, M Coetzee.
Replacements: M Gumede for van Staden (21), H Vorster for Williams (51-62), J Grobbelaar for van der Merwe (52), S Matanzima for Steenekamp, M Smith for Louw, R Ludwig for Vermaak (all 62), Z Burger for Papier, C Smith for Goosen (both 65), Vorster for Williams (69).
C Evans (WRU).