The idea that Leinster would have too much for Harlequins at the Aviva Stadium started last weekend when Quins made it clear that they had too much for Leinster in the Stoop.
As Leinster would testify from their experience in the back-to-backs against Saints last season, it’s not easy scaling the same peak of intensity twice in eight days. And if you have been outfought in the first leg then every waking moment in the interim is devoted to avoiding a repeat in the second. Certainly Leinster were well up for this, though Quins were not far behind them.
The pity was that what was served up for a 38,500 crowd on a cold, dry night was not exactly haute cuisine. And it dragged on too long to be in the fast food category. The upshot was that Leinster are equal with Quins on pool points but trail on tries scored, and on the head to head (1-3 on tries) between these teams if it comes down to that when the final sums are being added up.
If it was not a great spectacle then at least it was a photo finish. And the stewards looked long and hard at a dust-up on 77 minutes before Charlie Matthews was sent to the sin-bin for some facial work on Dominic Ryan, who had carried well for the home team all through.
It took about five minutes to reach that conclusion. Even then Leinster struggled to close the gate. The overriding feeling leaving the ground was that we had not been watching the eventual winners. And that if it is Leinster who come out of the pool late next month then they will struggle.
They were not short of bottle – or indeed ball – but for all their phase play they were stumped when it came to opening the Quins defence which for the most part was quick and accurate, and most of the time read exactly what Leinster were serving up.
Conor O’Shea’s side looked like winners when Tim Swiel kicked a close-in penalty on 67 minutes for a two-point lead. It was not the size of the lead but the fact that they looked much sharper. But a break by replacement Eoin Reddan was Leinster’s best and most timely intrusion of the 80 minutes and swung the game.
It was just after the half-hour mark when eventually Leinster got over the Quins line – and the apparent ease of it belied the struggle they had in getting to that point. It came from a five-metre scrum after Luke Wallace had spilled a ball that flew over the back of Leinster’s lineout – they had gone long perhaps because Quins’ defence of Leinster’s maul had been very effective – so there was a lump of luck involved. From there they got a perfect wheel to open up the blind and isolate Asaeli Tikoirotuma. It did not really matter if he came in or stayed out – he chose the former and Isaac Boss slid over untouched.
Ian Madigan’s missed conversion was his second from three shots, but when he nailed a penalty just before the break to give Leinster an 11-0 lead it took the edge off things. For Quins the good news was that their opponents had enjoyed 68% possession on the back of 72% territory and would have wanted more points to reflect those stats. The bad news was that the away team had been forced into making 73 tackles – almost twice Leinster’s workload – and that kind of effort takes its toll.
Moreover the two chances Quins had in that first 40 – two shots on goal from Swiel – were off target. Seemingly he is a talented young man but on the evidence of these two ties he is a long way yet from being a good goal kicker. He did knock over a handy one early in the second half after Quins picked up a scrum penalty in the Leinster 22, having just been knocked back on a referral upstairs for a try by Mike Brown. The full-back looked thoroughly brassed off with the decision, but was a good deal happier on 58 minutes when he finished without question on the other side of the field.
The key ingredient in that mix? A pop-up out of the tackle from Matt Hopper which left the Leinster defence for dead. In almost an hour’s rugby to that point Quins had managed five offloads, Leinster none. They would get another three before the end – with the home team still rooted on zero. But when Swiel’s 67th-minute penalty put Quins 13-11 in front at least Leinster managed to respond. Reddan rescued them initially, and Madigan – the man of the match – kicked the winning points when Dave Ward was done for hands in at a ruck. There would be a lot of huffing and puffing before Romain Poite wrapped it up, but no material change.
Brendan Fanning writes for the Sunday Independent
