Yorkshire Carnegie
Confused.com.......?
By Beeston Lion
October 15 2012
I travelled to Dublin intending to witness a British and Irish Cup pool match between Leinster ‘A’ and Leeds Carnegie. Upon entering the ground, in the suburbs south of the city centre, I was immediately transformed into the state alluded to in the title of this piece. Previous research had suggested that this was the home venue of Bective Rangers RFC, indeed the buildings at one end of the ground were labelled as such but at the other end signage indicated that those facilities belonged to Old Wesley RFC. It turned out that Bective Rangers provided changing facilities for Leinster ‘A’ and that Old Wesley were hosting the away team.
The match was due to start at 7.00pm and shortly before zero hour, and the teams entering the arena from different ends of the ground, we were given the team news. The printed team sheet, distributed at the turnstiles was correct for the visitors. The home side, loosely billed as Leinster's Academy side, contained only three changes to the starting line up with the back row reshuffled. Two changes were positional but a third concerned a newly named No 8, Leo Auva’a and the reaction of nearby Leinster supporters added further confusion to my situation by confirming that he had been an unused substitute at the nearby RDS earlier in the day when Leinster’s senior side had hosted the opening Heineken Cup pool match against Exeter Chiefs. Then came the majority of Leinster’s changes and these included three further unused subs from the afternoon match. These being James Hagan, Fionn Carr and Isaac Boss. This meant that the ‘Academy’ side now contained a smattering of players with substantial Celtic League experience, a couple of Ireland ‘A’ and 15 senior Ireland caps playing alongside a certain Tom Denton.
Once the match started we saw a Leeds Carnegie squad suffering from a certain amount of Leinster good fortune in the opening two tries in addition to the usual defensive frailties. The team seemed to lack any of the edge seen in League fixtures this season and this appeared to answer my own thoughts about how we would approach this revamped completion this time round. Although not a total changeover to second string there did seem to be something missing until the last ten minutes when we looked to step up a gear in an attempt to avoid any further humiliation. Joe Graham’s try, capping a fine display in the loose, came after a mistake from Leinster’s most experienced player, Isaac Boss. He assumed the referee had indicated that the next play was the last and kicked the ball out on his own 22. From the ensuing line out Carnegie recycled the ball well for Graham to eventually cross near the posts, allowing Joe Ford to add the extras and bring some respectability to the visitors final score.
Referee Jason Bessant, from Wales, seemed to penalise Leeds heavily, sometimes, I perceived, harshly, and did’nt even let up when the result was already in no doubt, by binning Chris Walker. This had immediate consequences when the ensuing scrum was won by the hosts, who scored a try down his channel from 15 metres out. Leinster supporters, who had been at the RDS earlier, were at least raised from their dissatisfaction at a ‘dire’ performance by the senior side, with the number of tries scored by the ‘A’ team. They were however, somewhat sheepish about the appearance of the above named players in a move which though, no doubt legitimate, left me somewhat disillusioned about the Leinster coaching set up. What effect this sort of action has on the outcome of the seasons competition remains to be seen, as does the consistency of teams put out, but I was thoroughly confused and bemused.........
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15/10/2012 18:46
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:10:27:08:20:05 by Wildwillie .
How did Dent’s perform?
