RUGBY: FERGUS MCFADDEN INTERVIEW
McFadden extends Leinster contract
By Daire Walsh
LAST Thursday proved to be a busy day in Leinster Rugby HQ, as they announced that 27 of their current squad have signed IRFU contracts to remain with the province for the 2015/16 season and beyond.
They also confirmed the addition of four new players to their roster, with Connacht’s Mick Kearney, Royce-Burke Flynn and Ian Hirst joining Jonathan Sexton at their UCD training base.
Suncroft’s Fergus McFadden was one of the players to commit his future to Leinster, but following a collision with Bath’s Kyle Eastmond in the Champions Cup at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday week, he was marked absent for the Pro12 encounter against Newport Gwent Dragons two days ago.
With the European semi-final against Toulon taking place this Sunday, Leinster won’t have a lot of time to work on the shortcomings that were evident in the Bath game. However, McFadden feels it might be more beneficial to reference last season’s Heineken Cup quarter-final reversal to the same opponents.
“The game against Toulon will be very different to the game we played against Bath. The areas of improvement might not necessarily be directly from the Bath game. It could be stuff looking back on the quarter we lost last year in Mayol,” McFadden stated in Old Wesley RFC last Wednesday.
“I’d say that’s a better indicator on what we’ll need to improve on. They’re not that much of a different team. I know they don’t have [Johnny] Wilkinson. They play a similar game. We’ll go through that closely and we shouldn’t be too far off.”
One of the big concerns arising from their tussle with the Aviva Premiership outfit was the number of missed tackles that Leinster had over the course of the play. Yet, McFadden is adamant that the errors which led to Bath’s tries can be easily rectified, and as a result, their chances of success will improve greatly.
“I think the tries that they scored were easy solves in a way. George Ford, in fairness to him, spotted a system error in the spacing a couple of times, and he’s very nippy over 5-6 metres. Once he shot through there, it’s pretty hard to stop. It we can stop that against Toulon, we’ll be in a good place.”
Although they had shifted their focus towards the Dragons by the end of the week, Leinster coach Matt O’Connor did hold a review meeting on the Bath performance, which lasted more than an hour.
McFadden offered some insight into the review process, and the role that the more experienced players have in this regard.
“It is pretty business-like. In fairness to Matt, he’ll tell you what he wants. What he thinks is good, what is bad. He’ll also take everyone’s opinions on board. He’ll open it up to the floor.”
“There is plenty of experience in that Leinster changing room, even for guys who didn’t play that much of the game, the like of Darce [Gordon D’Arcy]. It is great to hear what guys think and how guys think we can improve,” McFadden added.