Well London Irish handed out a good beating to Leinster last night (in a near capacity Donnybrook). A disjointed game from a Leinster point of view with the first substitution coming after 20 minutes and a flood of them coming and going every 20 mins or so.
Seemed to be too different attitudes really. London Irish came to win, there was no doubt of that after the first round of handbags about 60 seconds in to the game, and while Leinster tried to step up to the challenge there were simply far too many basic errors all through the game for them to gain any kind of momentum. Add to that a penalty count of about 20-3 in favour of Irish (and rightly so) and it was a fair result
(8-24)
Report: http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/newsroom/3717.php
Teams:
15: Niall Morris (Girvan Dempsey, 23), 14: Shane Horgan (Stephen Keogh, 76), 13: Fergus McFadden, 12: Shaun Berne, 11: Isa Nacewa, 10: Jonathan Sexton, 9: Simon Keogh (Paul O'Donohoe, 31) (David Moore, 61), 1: Ronan McCormack (Cian Healy, half-time), 2: Bernard Jackman (John Fogarty, half-time), 3: Stan Wright (Mike Ross, 61), 4: Leo Cullen CAPTAIN (Malcolm O'Kelly, 56), 5: Devin Toner, 6: Sean O’Brien (Kevin McLaughlin, half-time)
7: Shane Jennings, 8: Stephen Keogh (Billy Ngawini, 74) (All the Lions were sitting in the stand but not togged out)
15: Peter Hewat (Australia), 14: Marcus Watson, 13: Delon Armitage, 12: Seilala Mapusua (Samoa), 11: Sailosi Tagicakibau (Samoa), 10: Ryan Lamb, 9: Paul Hodgson, 1: Clarke Dermody (New Zealand) CAPTAIN, 2: Danie Coetzee (South Africa), 3: Paulica Ion (Romania), 4: Andy Perry, 5: Nick Kennedy, 6: Declan Danaher, 7: Steffon Armitage, 8: Chris Hala’Ufia (Tonga)
Was impressed by Niall Morris (20 minutes I saw of him) and Paul O'Donohoe. Kevin McLaughlin also looked very good at 6 when he came on. From london Irish point of view. Armitage at 13 looked in fine form, Hodgson was really lively and Lamb (he who tackles worse then O'gara) threw the ball around quite well and his kicking was pretty much bang on all day.
Irish look ready for the season, Leinster look way off the pace. Lots to do, lots and lots to do.
