James Lowe and Max Deegan crossed for two tries each in Leinster’s 41-6 bonus point win over Zebre at the RDS, which keeps them on course for a home GUINNESS PRO14 semi-final.
The Conference B front-runners, who have extended their lead over the second-placed Scarlets to four points, ended a rain-lashed first half with a 12-3 buffer thanks to scores from James Lowe (12 minutes) and Rory O’Loughlin (34).
21-year-old man-of-the-match Max Deegan book-ended the third quarter with two well-taken tries, with Carlo Canna’s second penalty sandwiched in between. Leinster finished with a flourish, Lowe grabbing his ninth try in ten starts, 22-year-old Academy prop Vakh Abdaladze getting his first senior score, and fellow replacement Bryan Byrne completing the seven-try rout.
The table-topping province’s defence stood up well to Zebre’s early assaults, Dan Leavy forcing a knock-on at the breakdown and Barry Daly’s half-break bringing the hosts past the halfway line.
New Zealander Lowe soon burst into life, threatening from a kick through – and then a quick tap – before Ross Byrne fed him for his close-range try near the left corner.
A curling conversion from Byrne made it a seven-point return, but the Italians continued to have their moments in a scrappy opening quarter. They needed a pacier player than Leonard Krumov on the ball after a midfield turnover had presented a try-scoring opportunity.
Amid a heavy rain shower, Dario Chistolini won a scrum penalty on his 100th appearance for the club, launching a promising spell at the end of which scrum half Marcello Violi just failed to get the ball against the foot of the post for a try. His half-back partner Canna mopped up the three points on offer.
However, a superb break by full-back Daly on a kick return launched Leinster forward for a timely second try. Backs and forwards combined, mostly notably James Tracy and Tadhg Furlong, and the visitors’ defence was suitably stretched for Lowe to send centre O’Loughlin sliding over, wide on the right.
Zebre fell further behind inside the opening minute of the second half. Deegan reacted quickest after referee Ian Davies ruled that the ball was out of a Zebre ruck, the young number 8 pinching it from under Violi’s nose and charging over from inside the 22.
After Byrne’s missed conversion, Zebre had another decent spell on the back of a couple of penalties, and although turnovers from Leavy and Tracy thwarted them, Canna doubled his side’s tally off the tee – 17-6.
That was as close as they could get, Leinster picking up the pace as Deegan, who took an initial tap, touched down on the hour mark after a pacy attack involving Lowe and O’Loughlin again, and a final pass from out-half Byrne.
Mattia Bellini denied Adam Byrne, who knocked on a bouncing cross-field kick from Ross Byrne, but with the youthful Leinster bench full of running, including 20-year-old debutant Gavin Mullin, they added three more tries in an eight-minute spell.
Having broken the defensive line, Ross Byrne’s deflected pass was gobbled up by the onrushing Lowe to seal his brace, and Byrne converted Abdaladze’s low 71st-minute drive for the whitewash. Reserve hooker Byrne struck with a similar effort, four minutes from the final whistle.
Giving his reaction afterwards, Leinster boss Leo Cullen said: “We looked a little bit disjointed, I thought in the first half, which is probably understandable. If you think we had one group getting ready to play against Munster last weekend in the British & Irish Cup quarter-final, and another group obviously playing at the Aviva. It’s almost like a merging of those two groups together. Our cohesion was a little bit off, I thought.
“I thought Zebre managed the ball pretty well (in the first half) and caused us a few problems. We were a little bit off and we just lacked a bit of intensity in our play. We were much better in the second half. We were all pretty relieved to see Max go over early in the second half because it almost settled us down.
“I thought the bench gave us good impact as well. Overall, listen, we’re pleased. We got a win. There’s a lot of things we can do better but ultimately we have won the game and got five points. We can move onto the next challenge now.
“We’ll have some fresh faces coming into the group next week which will be good, it gives us fresh energy because that’s important as you go hard at these games to try and get as much as you possibly can. Treviso are a very, very difficult team to play against and they’ll be pushing to try and play in Europe. We’ll make sure we prepare well this coming week.”
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