RUGBY COLUMN – OCTOBER 03
By Daire Walsh
Leinster returned to winning ways at the RDS last Friday evening, as they secured a hard-earned 21-13 win over Edinburgh in their second Guinness PRO14 home encounter of the new campaign.
The Blues were hoping to bounce back from their defeat to the Toyota Cheetahs seven days earlier, and they included Kildare duo Joey Carbery and Fergus McFadden in the back-three alongside Dave Kearney – who is a former student of Clongowes Wood College in Clane.
Leinster also handed recalls to Lions stars Jonathan Sexton (who captained the side in the absence of Isa Nacewa), Jack McGrath, Tadhg Furlong and Sean O’Brien, but they found themselves under intense pressure during the opening stages of the contest.
Edinburgh dominated possession inside the opposition ’22’, and even though they couldn’t quite break over the Leinster line, they settled for a routine fifth-minute penalty from Jason Tovey. Indeed, the visiting fly-half doubled his team’s account with just under 11 minutes gone on the clock, before the hosts finally kicked into gear.
Sexton opted for touch from a subsequently penalty, and after Leinster push towards the whitewash, the now fully-fit Jordi Murphy drove over for the maiden try of the game. Sexton was on hand to supply the bonuses to this score, but just when Leo Cullen’s charges appeared to be in control, Tovey pounced for an intercept score on the half-hour mark.
This was a major set-back for Leinster, and though an audacious crossfield kick by Sexton looked set to produce a Scott Fardy try, he was dispossessed just shy of the whitewash. However, Leinster persisted in the closing moments of the half, and they eventually brought a slender 14-13 cushion into the interval with a converted Carbery touchdown on the stroke of 40 minutes.
This left the game delicately poised when the action resumed, but it was Leinster who appeared to be making the greater attacking inroads in the third-quarter. Yet, despite having a temporary numerical advantage when Edinburgh’s Jamie Ritchie was sin-binned in the 51st-minute, they were struggling to add to their tally.
In fact, they looked set for a tough finale when Dougie Fife finished off an enterprising Edinburgh attack 16 minutes from time – only for referee Ian Davies to ruled out the score following consultation with TMO Jon Mason.
This was a massive relief for the home team, and with five minutes remaining on the clock, they finally placed the outcome beyond doubt with a third try from replacement scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park.
In Division 1B of the Ulster Bank League, Naas produced a gallant display against Bainbridge at Rifle Park on Saturday, before eventually succumbing to a 42-35 defeat. The Forenaughts outfit were victorious in their opening two games of the current campaign, but thanks to five tries over the course of the action (including two from Ross Bailey-Kearney and one by Graham Reynolds), they did return home with two points to their name in a narrow reversal.