February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
There was also good news for Ireland coach in advance of the Six Nations championship as all his international players in the Leinster lineup came through unscathed. Brian O’Driscoll didn’t start the game due to a slight shoulder knock, but the Irish captain will be fit to lead the team in the first outing of the championship, against Italy in Rome on Sunday.
Ireland go into the tournament on the back of last season’s Triple Crown success with a strong chance of overall victory as they play both reigning champions France and England in Dublin. There has even been talk of the elusive Grand Slam — wins over each opponent — which was achieved just once back in 1948.
Tries flowed at regular intervals from Denis Hickie and Shane Horgan, who each scored two, Shane Byrne, Felipe Contepomi and Niall Ronan, while David Holwell added all seven conversions as well as two penalties in a flawless kicking display.
If coach Declan Kidney will have been pleased with the performances of his more established players such as Horgan, Hickie, Gordon D’Arcy and Eric Miller, he will have taken note of the way the unsung Ronan and Ciaran Potts competed in the back row.
Leinster led by 27-3 at the interval and had it all their own way during the second half as the Dragons failed abysmally to mount a challenge.
The vista was much more depressing for Munster, who traveled to another Welsh side, Llanelli, where they were comprehensively defeated by 32-17. If once again O’Sullivan will have been content that his international contingent, including Ronan O’Gara, who was making his return after a hand injury, all reported clean bills of health, Munster coach Alan Gaffney was left scratching his head after this inept display.
Apart from the embarrassment of conceding four tries, there was a whole series of individual errors with Marcus Horan, Anthony Foley and Donncha O’Callaghan all making uncharacteristic mistakes. “Their tries came from our errors,” said Gaffney, “one was a missed tackle, two were because we failed to secure the restarts, and the fourth was an interception. You will have to ask the individuals why they make that sort of mistakes because we do enough skills work in training.”
Munster were in contention with tries from Peter Stringer and Alan Quinlan either side of halftime, but they were incapable of building on that platform as Llanelli capitalized on their generosity.
Meanwhile, Connacht registered their first Celtic League win in five games when they held out bravely to defeat the Borders of Scotland by 18-9 at Netherdale last Friday. Ahead 15-3 at the break through tries by Paul Warwick and John Fogarty, Connacht were well on top but they let the Borders back into the match and were forced to defend for much of the last quarter.
Connacht are now in seventh place in the table ahead of Ulster and four points clear of Cardiff in the race for a qualifying place for next season’s European Cup.