Leinster Overcome Injury Setbacks To Put Saints Away

Leinster were far from their best but did enough to pick up another Heineken Champions Cup bonus point win, seeing off an under-strength Northampton Saints 35-19 at the RDS.

It was a tighter contest than expected in the first half, tries from Josh Murphy, Cian Healy and Dave Kearney giving injury-hit Leinster a 22-14 interval lead.

Fraser Dingwall and Champions Cup debutant Tom James hit back for Saints, who fielded a much-changed side following last week’s home loss to Bordeaux-Begles.

Jamison Gibson-Park and Nick Isiekwe swapped early second half tries, leaving out-half Ross Byrne to kick Leinster home with two closing penalties.

Despite losing Caelan Doris and Harry Byrne to late injuries, the disruption had little initial impact on the hosts as flanker Murphy, a first-time starter in Europe, crashed over in the second minute after a break by Garry Ringrose.

Byrne’s older brother Ross converted but was met by a meaty tackle from Dingwall soon after, as the resulting turnover penalty relieved some pressure on Saints.

A well-supported Healy burrowed over on the quarter hour mark, making up for an earlier knock-on close to the try-line. Byrne converted for 14-0.

However, the departure of a concussed Jimmy O’Brien meant further action on the province’s bench and Northampton were able to take advantage.

Dingwall took a lovely line onto a James pass to score underneath the posts, with his centre partner Rory Hutchinson converting.

Byrne responded with a 27th minute penalty for a 10-point lead, only for scrum half James to profit from a strong Northampton scrum, reaching over past two covering defenders.

Leinster regained their composure late on, thought, as Gibson-Park used a penalty advantage to fling a pass wide and put Kearney over in the left corner, despite Ryan Olowofela’s attempt to intercept.

The second half was only two minutes’ old when Gibson-Park sauntered in under the posts, profiting from an advancing scrum and exposing some poor defending from stand-in out-half George Furbank.

After Byrne added the extras, Gibson-Park quickly handed back five points when his kick was charged down by loan signing Isiekwe who collected for his first European try. Hutchinson missed the difficult conversion.

A sudden rain shower made for a scrappy third quarter with Northampton having plenty of possession, their best move being a neat chip-and-regather by Tom Collins. Those result-sealing penalties from Byrne came in the 60th and 71st minutes.

Along with it being Northampton’s 13th straight defeat in all competitions, the citing commissioner may have a closer look at a Tom Wood clearout where his shoulder made contact with Josh van der Flier’s head.

Speaking about Leinster’s injury concerns and the overall performance, head coach Leo Cullen said: “Caelan has that calf (problem) from that Scotland game and felt it a little bit last week as well. He wasn’t feeling great today so we made that call.

“Josh came in and I thought he was good. Harry Byrne didn’t make it to the first kick-off. He gets a bang in the back doing that tackling drill just at the very end of the warm-up. We’re in the dressing room and is he going to be okay? So we just make the call there – split-second stuff.

“It looked like his back was about to seize up. That’s just one of those pretty innocuous things and huge credit to Ross for stepping in there. We’d already put Ciaran Frawley onto the bench and then Cian Kelleher steps in on to the bench.

“We reverted back to that 5-3 split from the bench, thankfully, so someone was looking out for us. A lot of disruption and then, before you know it, Ciaran and Cian Kelleher are both on the field as well. It was a very strange start to the game.

“I thought we settled in and started the game okay but it was a bit disjointed after that. Even though we got a win and a bonus point I think guys are in the dressing room there sort of scratching their heads as to what actually went on out there.”