Dublin Discrace

Dai Young
By Andrew Collins
October 17 2005

The Blues took a huge step backwards on Saturday, suffering their 2nd away loss in a week, this time at the hands of Irish province Leinster. Having lost to Wasps a week previous, the Capital were hoping for a big push before next weeks Heineken opener, but were instead embarrassed by the Dubliners.

R Williams 6, Czekaj 5, J. Robinson 5, Davies 4, Morgan 5, N. Robinson 6, Phillips 6, Yapp 6, G. Williams 4, Evans 5, D. Jones 6, Sidoli 6, Molitika 7, M Williams 6, Rush 7.

M. Jones for Evens 6, Schubert for Molitika 5, Sowden-Taylor for Williams 6, R. Powell for Phillips 5, Stcherbina for T. Davies 6

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Cardiff Blues will go down in history as the first rugby side to play at the Royal Dublin Showgrounds, and will be remembered for putting up very little defence against a flattered Leinster side.

The opening, as per usual away from home, was sloppy, and right from the kick the Blues looked under the cosh.

It took just 3 minutes before they were already the wrong side of the deficit, Shane Horgan ran down the wing before putting in a grubber kick, over the line, and awkward bounce beat the covering Nicky Robinson, and captain Filipe Contapomi gathered to score between the sticks, which he converted.

Cardiff struck back, undeservedly, and within 10 minutes 2 Robinson penalties had brought the visitors within a point. With quarter of an hour gone, the Blues had yet to build a dangerous attack, and ever turn-over ball seemed to end in a narrow miss for the Irish.

2 minutes later, Leinster did what they had been threatening to do, and stretched their lead, disappointingly weak tackling and lackv lustre covering allowed Horgan to shrug off tackles that should not have been missed, he slice through the middle to score almost unchallenged again converted by Contepomi.

Robinson added another 3 points, but Leinster showed their dominance with 2 more tries before the half.

Firstly, Lion Gordan D'Darcy outpaced Rhys Williams to collect a grubber kick, then Ben Gissing scored another easy try as Leinster picked up a bonus point.

Half Time Leinster 26 Cardiff Blues 9

Cardiff were hanging on by the skin of their teeth when Robinson added 6 points from the restart, giving an atchievable 11 point difference, despite the 4-0 try count.

The second half display was still poor, with no attacking dimension from any player, but they were able to hold on to the ball, and were defending alot better. But they were unable to make the most of their possession, and conceded a penalty to finish any hopes of a comeback on the hour.

With 12 minutes to go, the game turned ugly, when Mike Phillips was caught stamping. He was binned, shortly followed by substitute prop Ronan McCormack for another 'off-the-ball' incident.

Leinster furthed their lead with another grubber kick try, this time Gissing pounced on a kick, perhaps controversially after tripping substitute Ryan Powell over the line.

Full Time Leinster 35 Cardiff Blues 15

After the match Dai said,

"That was our worst performance of the season, a real step backwards. Leinster played well, but we made them look good and gifted them four first-half tries through poor defence."

It doesn't bode well for Saturdays midday European match against Leeds. The Tykes are rock bottom in the Guinness Premiership, and are yet to win a game, however the 2 losses on the bounce wont have done much good to an already fragile Blues side.

On top of the defeats, it's been confirmed that Tom Shanklin will be out of action until the new year, suffering a re-occurence of the knee injury that kept him out of the Lions test matches. He will miss Celtic, Powergen and Heineken Cup matches plus Wales' Autumn internationals against New Zealand, Figi, South Africa and Australia.

Marc Strchabina looks set to replace him after comming on in Dublin. He made one very encouraging break, but looked rusty and out of sorts at times. However he will know about Leeds from last season with Northampton. Other options are Tristan Davies and Lee Thomas who brings a right footed kicking option.

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