HOW THE BRILLIANT BAIRD TRY SHOWED LEINSTER'S METTLE AGAINST LA ROCHELLE

LEINSTER HAD CONTROLLED much of the first half, playing some wonderful rugby at times, but a try for La Rochelle in the last act before the break could have been cause for concern.

The Irish province still had a 10-point lead at 23-13 but scoring in those ‘championship minutes’ around half time can be so influential in games.

Yet Leinster quashed any nagging doubts supporters might have had. Within three minutes of play restarting, Ryan Baird finished a try that strongly suggested this was going to be Leinster’s day.

How Leinster performed in those championship minutes after the break was among the most impressive aspects of their performance on a day when they had too much class for La Rochelle.

The French side restart to Leinster’s left, where Baird catches overhead with a lift from Tadhg Furlong and Will Connors.

It’s just one of many composed moments from Baird on a day when he led Leinster’s lineout impressively as they opted to go without experienced lineout caller Ross Molony in the starting XV even with James Ryan, another lineout specialist, out injured.

Leinster play one phase infield and then use Jamie Osborne’s big left boot to deliver an excellent exit kick.

We’re used to seeing James Lowe kick from this kind of position and he is in the vicinity here, positioned to the left-hand side of the ruck.

Lowe did kick six times in this game but it was notable that only one of them was an exit out of his own 22.

Instead, it was largely Osborne – who kicked five times – who took on the duties in this position. In this instance, his powerful clearance finds touch inside the La Rochelle half. It’s an excellent kick and a positive start to the second half for Leinster.

From the resulting lineout, the Leinster defence strikes for a breakdown turnover in what was another key theme in this game.

La Rochelle win the lineout and play away from it via a maul break, whereby it appears they will try to maul but that’s simply a dummy before they carry off it through Grégory Alldritt. Leinster lock Jason Jenkins does an excellent job to tackle Alldritt.

As we highlighted below, Jenkins is moving to join the maul defence as Alldritt bides his time.

Alldritt is eyeballing Jenkins, waiting for him to commit into the maul, therefore leaving space to attack.

But as Alldritt breaks, Jenkins has stayed alert and just before he binds onto the maul defence, he’s able to adjust and push off towards Alldritt. The French number eight can’t land a good fend onto Jenkins, who gets Alldritt to ground.

As he’s tackling Alldritt, we can see that Jenkins also takes La Rochelle hooker Tolu Latu out of the equation, his swinging legs knocking Latu to the ground.

Because Jenkins has been able to tackle Alldritt, we can see that Leinster loosehead Andrew Porter is eyeing up the breakdown chance, while hooker Dan Sheehan does the same just outside him.

The Leinster pair have time to get into good positions at the breakdown before Levani Botia can arrive. When he does so, Botia drives into Sheehan and that means Porter can complete the turnover penalty win as Alldritt is pinged for holding on.

So within 90 seconds of receiving the restart to the second half, Leinster are kicking a penalty down the left-hand touchline to launch an attack.

Baird calls the lineout on himself and Leinster run a maul break of their own.

They look to Lowe’s power to win the gainline on first phase but La Rochelle bring some defensive heat to knock him back.

Watch how outside centre Ulupano Seuteni smashes Ross Byrne just after he passes inside to Lowe, who is levelled by inside centre Jonathan Danty.

Botia recognises the opportunity created by Danty’s thunderous tackle.

As we see below, he barges into the breakdown looking to lead a turnover but opposite number Will Connors is able to do just enough to help Leinster retain possession, with Sheehan also contributing.

Botia appeals that Connors has gone off his feet, while he could possibly argue it’s a side entry too, but we can see above that Connors is doing his best not to just flop down over the ball.

It’s enough to convince referee Karl Dickson, who seems content with Sheehan’s hands being on the ground because there’s no other La Rochelle player in the contest at that stage. A second barge might have done the trick for La Rochelle but Leinster survive.

Botia instead continues the onslaught on the next phase as Caelan Doris carries. This time, it’s a jackal effort over his own tackle.

Porter and Tadhg Furlong are able to do enough to clear Botia away as Doris works hard to get a long place of the ball, the combined effect being that Botia never connects fully with the ball to give it that lift or tug that might earn a penalty.

Sheehan is chopped down on the next phase and it seems like Leinster’s attack is going nowhere until Osborne makes a strong carry on the next phase.

Robbie Henshaw runs a loop line around Obsorne, who also has the option of tipping a short pass to Ciarán Frawley, but he drives into Ihaia West and pumps his legs as Frawley latches on.

While Leinster don’t make big gainline progress on this phase, we can see above that it’s finally clean, quick ball to attack with after the dogfight of the opening phases of the passage.

They have also been able to get into their multi-phase attacking shape back over on the left, with a pod of three forwards forming close to the ruck [red below] and out-half Byrne tucking in behind them [yellow].

A little wider, a second pod of two forwards is setting up [blue below].

Meanwhile, Sheehan [pink] is backpedalling in order to get himself closer to the 15-metre line, providing more width.

We can also see that Henshaw and Jordan Larmour [black below] are working hard to swing out the back.

That will be key to what follows.

As Leinster use that clean ball provided by Osborne’s carry, Doris gets involved again.

He dummies a tip-in pass and carries himself, providing another rapid recycle which is helped hugely by Jenkins making a proactive clearout on Will Skelton after he’s involved in the tackle on Doris. 

And now Leinster are ready to strike.

Byrne – who has been calling the shots here, directing his team-mates – passes to Furlong, who almost instantly plays a slick ball out the back to Henshaw just before the onrushing Danty can hit him. It’s a classy bit of skill from the Leinster tighthead.

Even as the phase begins above, we can see that Sheehan is still backpedalling to get himself set wider. He then runs a short line off Henshaw as the front-door option but Henshaw goes out the back to Larmour in one lovely, fluid motion as Leinster look to get wide.

Larmour’s catch-pass is also wonderful as La Rochelle scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow attempts to shut him down with a ball-and-all tackle.

Kerr-Barlow is injured in his tackle as he gets his head on the wrong side but Larmour’s skill is clear to see. It would be easy to pull this pass behind Lowe with so much pressure on but Larmour gets it in front of Lowe so he doesn’t have to check his run.

There’s still plenty of work for Leinster to do to finish but they seal the deal out wide.

Lowe does a good job of posing a threat to the inside shoulder of Jack Nowell, as highlighted below.

Nowell is obviously aware that Baird has been hugging the touchline throughout and ideally would shift out towards him earlier, but he’s not sure that Botia will get to Lowe.

Lowe delays his pass nicely to hold Nowell, meaning that the pacy Baird can sprint beyond the English wing once Lowe has passed to him. The assistant referee is clearly happy the pass is flat, while there is nothing flagged by the TMO either.

Baird shapes to pass back inside to Lowe but seems to see that Latu is briefly on top of Lowe, pulling at him as he tracks across.

Having dummied, Baird decides to hang onto the ball himself instead and blasts through a missed tackle from La Rochelle out-half Antoine Hastoy. The late dummy perhaps unsettles Hastoy but he’d have been disappointed with his effort on Baird.

Still, it’s an excellent finish from the blindside flanker after showing his gas to get beyond Nowell, then a calm head when the pass inside to Lowe wasn’t clearly on.

With Byrne adding the extra points, Leinster are 30-13 ahead. Although a 17-point lead hadn’t been enough in last season’s Champions Cup final, it’s clearly a position of dominance after such a strong start to the second half.

Worryingly for La Rochelle, Hastoy follows up the try concession with an immediate error as he kicks his restart out on the full.

And at the resulting scrum, Leinster get the La Rochelle pack marching backwards.

It’s a beautiful sight for Leo Cullen and co.

The scrum penalty concludes a dominant opening five minutes of the second half from Leinster as they show no sign of being shaken by that La Rochelle score before the break. Instead, they have pretty much sealed the deal with 35 minutes left.

2024-04-15T19:58:54Z dg43tfdfdgfd