Connacht 12
Leinster 33
FIVE WEEKS INTO the season, it’s fair to start identifying trends.
Leinster love bonus-point wins, we know that. Five tries in Galway tonight against Connacht made it five bonus-point wins from five games for a perfect start to this URC campaign.
Leinster enjoy defending, seemingly taking an almost sadistic pleasure in tackling and scrambling and staying in the fight. They’re not perfect in defence but they seem to relish not having the ball under Jacques Nienaber’s guidance.
As was the case last weekend in Croker, Leinster’s opposition probably felt they created enough pressure and got into good enough field positions to pull off a comeback but it didn’t happen. It seems that when you think you have Leinster on the ropes, they’ve held back energy to land a haymaker out of the blue.
And as Leinster’s ruthless streak in the opposition 22 showed up again, Springboks second row RG Snyman continued his impressive settling-in period with an outstanding performance that featured some stunning offload, excellent lineout work, and plenty of big collisions. A missed tackle for one of Connacht’s tries was the only blot on his copy.
On a dry but windy night in front of a crowd of 6,117 at Dexcom Stadium, where the new stand is starting to take shape, Connacht had cause to rue a first-half performance in which they struggled to get out of their own 22.
Leinster punished them with a clinical performance, taking full advantage when they were handed opportunities to attack. When they get a good platform from lineouts in the 22, their power and sharp decision-making mean they are difficult to stop.
There is plenty of stuff to tidy up as they now look towards the final game of this six-week block at home against the Lions next weekend but the one real big negative was the loss of out-half Ciarán Frawley to an ankle injury after just 16 minutes.
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