Johnny Sexton proves he can still be in the thick of it for Leinster

Brendan Fanning

Leinster take plenty of positives from their opening night victory

Leinster's Jonathan Sexton kicks a conversion at the Aviva Stadium. Photo: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

September 26 2021 02:30 AM

This is the 20th running of the tournament introduced in 2001 to keep Celts from hanging around street corners, a whole load of loitering for which they were being paid.

It started without a sponsor. Five years later, Magners got on board, by which stage it had already taken on a few characteristics of a lad who was winding his way home after a bellyful of the new sponsor’s brew.

So by the time we kicked off here in the Aviva yesterday evening in front of a reported 19,419 paying spectators, the competition was — between either format or the number of teams involved — in its 10th incarnation. This has been the pinball competition of the rugby world.

In the circumstances, hoping for a few years of stability might be unwise. We’d settle for entertainment and competitive rugby to start with — or rather to start again.

This game, in beautiful conditions and on a perfect pitch, left a few holes to be filled. The sense that you were not a witness to history adorned with the highest quality unfolded with the first play of the game: Johan Goosen screwing his drop off into touch. But you have to start from somewhere. It would get better, but not before Leinster had raced into a 17-0 lead after just 15 minutes.

There was some sting in the game for chunky periods in the first half when Leinster were being nailed by referee Mike Adamson, en route to a negative penalty count of nine by the break. Mostly these periods involved the Bulls hammering away repeatedly in the Leinster 22, several times looking like they would get their reward, only to be undone on the last gasp. They looked dispirited when it didn’t work out.

Even when wing Madosh Tambwe breached Leinster’s line, it was called back, whereupon they lost the ball on the next play. Leinster rode their luck. They deserved to, given the work rate all over the park.

First, the new boy: Michael Ala’alatoa. You expect All Black props to be able to run through the list of skills required, ticking the boxes without thinking. Even so, it’s reassuring to see a tight head deliver a pass off the bottom of a ruck with laser-like accuracy. True, that’s not specifically why he was hired, but it’s encouraging nonetheless. The Kiwi did the grunt stuff as well and looked like he fitted in from the moment he set foot on Irish soil.

Second, an older boy: Ross Molony. When he was part of the Ireland camp for the summer Tests against Japan and the US, he could have been forgiven for thinking his number was about to be called. It wasn’t. It must have felt like swallowing a golf ball. His partner here yesterday, James Ryan, was still in the running for a call-up to the Lions, so maybe that was the reason. Whatever, Molony led the lineout very well and played out of his skin. Fair dues to him.

Third, an older boy still: Johnny Sexton. If you watched Connacht come out the wrong side of Cardiff on Friday night, you’ll have seen the effectiveness of re-involving the scrum-half in starter plays off scrums — as the home side did. The home side here, Leinster, did it as well, to even greater effect. Whether it was Sexton at first receiver or James Lowe, we got to see more of Luke McGrath in open field than we can remember.

There was one sublime interchange with Sexton, with the captain showing remarkable reflexes to return a pass before being emptied. If you had been leading the charge — and we have — to park Sexton in lush green pasture where he could see out his days in safe grazing, then we are backtracking at speed. That’s the nature of the business. He was very good in pretty much everything he did.

So was Josh van der Flier, who had the man-of-the-match award in the bag almost from the time he scored the game’s first try with exactly 6:26 on the clock. He played like a man who had the hump; his summer didn’t involve much rugby.

Fourth: to a position not jam-packed with contenders for national selection: hooker. And Dan Sheehan. A young man hard to miss from a few years back, this was a big game for him and right on cue, he had a big game. Andy Farrell will look at Sheehan, Rónan Kelleher and Rob Herring and reckon if he could get another two up to that standard, he’d be on the pig’s back.

Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster, meantime, will be happy with how things are working. However, this game will not have shed much light on their team’s capacity to return to a dominant position in Europe, where they want to be.

As for the Bulls, they were a long way from being good enough but will be better. It was hard to fathom the ropey state of their lineout or their physical conditioning.

It was a quick game, and they did their bit in that regard, but for a side who were winning their second successive Currie Cup only a fortnight ago, and who arrived in Ireland last weekend, they looked shattered.

It remains to be seen where the South African sides will be playing their home games, given the uncertainty over Covid. If they have to travel to Italy, for example, to fulfil those games, it will be more than they bargained for when signing up.