Coming into the game, both teams had had far from ideal starts to the seasons.
Leinster had traditionally tough opener away to Scarlets, where we were hammered last season, but a very young, inexperienced side turned that result a full 180 degrees, coming out 42 - 19 bonus point victors. That's not to say there weren't many concerns coming out of that game, most notably very weak defending around the fringes and a lack of ability to dictate the game for long periods.
Next up was a strong Ospreys lineup, a game in which Leinster showed total dominance for much of the game, but crucially failed to be clinical enough on the scoreboard and that natural panic of being the better team than the Ospreys in the RDS but just not doing enough to pull away from them set in, as we switched off for 5 - 10 minutes to suddenly concede to quick tries and find ourselves 7 points down. The boys snapped back into focus, and with a man in the bin, found 10 further points to edge a 3 point lead in the closing minutes, but it wouldn't be an RDS showdown with the Ospreys if it didn't end in daylight robbery, Dan Biggar again the man to duly oblige.
Next up Glasgow, the less said the better. I struggle to think of a worse Leinster performance at any point over the last several years, but we had zero control over the game, unable to dictate territory and unable to do anything with possession, it was a "Munster-esq" performance if you're an admirer of 15 men slugging a ball left and right and back again with zero penetration and zero creativity or skill on show. Worse yet, we were dominated at the break down and only seemed interested in tackling or having any defensive formation inside our own 22. We got out with a match point, but scantly deserved anything.
In all the above games, the scrum grew to be a major concern.
Then the Cardiff game last week. The quality of opposition, or at least attitude, can always be questions with Cardiff, but sporting 4 or 5 Lions, and a frantic opening, it soon became clear that they came to play. There were massive improvements in many areas on this outing, not least a dominant scrum lead by Healy, Strauss and best of all Moore, the Cardiff pack was shunted in every direction except forward. We also showed vastly superior backline play, with set moves as well as playing off the cusp seeing lots of penetration and much more stretching of the opponent. A massive part of this was to do with Madigans play making skills and play selection. A handy BP win, it was also a good workout but not without flaws, again not up to speed with defensive line which was sloppy and saw far too many linebreaks that were unimaginable only a season or two ago. Major area of work leading into the Thomond encounter.
Overall a decent start, results in most cases better than performance, but two BP wins home and away against Welsh opposition, a losing BP in Glasgow is no disgrace and arguably deserved a thrid win but for being Ospreyed, I'd call it a solid if unspectacular start which is showing signs of progress with reintegration of players.
As for Munster, they made very tough work of getting out of a Zebre game without red faces for the second season in a row, before being downed in Italy the next week by Treviso (for the second season in a row).
Better points for them were a fairly good win over Edinburgh, although shipping 2 tries and 23 points at home to a side of their class is not ideal, and another less than impressive victory over a Dragons side who, coupled with the other 3 teams in Munsters opening rounds - make up probably the 4 worst teams in the league, Zebre and Dragons by far being the worst.
I watched the Dragons game in full and frankly, thought Munster were absolutely woeful. Despite absolute dominance in the set piece (Dragons lost 7+ lineouts on own throw, not one from pressure, but just over throws and crooked throws) and had a scrum that couldn't withstand a gentle mid-summers breeze, Munster had a nice position (which they targeted, especially their scrum and no disrespect to the Munster props who can rightly claim having a very good game) of basically having all the ball and territory, but still lacked anything that resembled a game plan of a rugby team, the penetration of the backline was non-existant, I don't recall a single move or clever interplay to go through the Dragons line (in fact the Dragons back line looked much the sharper), and nearly all that could and was targetted was brute force. Both tries were a lean over the line from a yard, and both came from Dragons having no set-piece and no power in defence.
On that basis, I'm very very optimistic ahead of what has now become an annual trip of optimism down to Limerick, I've seen nothing what so ever from Munster that should trouble Leinster, I think bully boy tactics will work against the worst teams around (and thus Munster will do ok again in the Heineken Cup), but I think at the first sign of a good team, Munster will struggle heavily. All their tests this season have been against extremely weak teams and they've made hard work of it, I think Leinster look far sharper and have the big fire power mostly back for this one.
I think last season, without Owens, Leinster were a 20+ point better team, and I think it's there or there abouts again this season (don't forget a disallowed Leinster try, two extremely dubious Munster tries and no O'Connell yellow card for non-intentional reckless play), it was one of those days the ref tried to hand them the game but they still couldn't take it.
I strongly feel this will be another 5 in a row. "Five in a row, two point oh" , not forgetting Munster will always raise their game ten fold for Leinster, I still think we are just too far ahead of them. Not the miles ahead we were in the not so distant past, but still way too far ahead of them to not expect to beat them home or away.
Lets the games BEGIN!
My predicted Leinster line-up:
15. R,Kearney
14. McFadden
13. O'Driscoll
12. D'Arcy
11. D. Kearney
10. Madigan
9. Boss
1. Healy
2. Strauss
3. Ross
4. McCarthy
5. Toner
6. McLoughlin
7. Murphy
8. Heaslip
16. Cronin 17. McGrath 18. Moore 19. Roux 20. O'Brien 21. Reddan 22. Gopperth 23. Fitzgerald
