Leo’s face says it all. Bad day at the office for Leinster and Connacht
It’s still only the pre-season, but Joe Schmidt and Eric Elwood will still be worried about the extent of the beatings their teams took in England yesterday.
With only a couple of weeks to go until the start of the new Rabo 12 season, both Leinster and Connacht had cans of whupass opened on them by Northampton and Harlequins respectively, with 88 points conceded and only 11 points scored between them.
Leinster, in fact, didn’t manage to score at all as the Saints gained a small measure of revenge for the 2011 Heineken Cup defeat, running in seven tries in total, including four in the last 15 minutes, for a 43-0 victory.
Granted, it was a very experimental side fielded by Joe Schmidt, but the likes of Isaac Boss, Leo Cullen, Richardt Strauss and Devin Toner all started and even with the inexperience in the side, one would have expected better from the back to back Heineken Cup champions.
Connacht didn’t fare much better in scorching conditions in the Stoop against Harlequins, who have become familiar opposition for the Westerners in recent years.
Like Leinster, Connacht conceded seven tries, two from bad boy Danny Care, and were comprehensively beaten although they at least managed to trouble the scoreboard operator with six points from the boot of Matt Jarvis and a try from debutant Robbie Henshaw in a 45-11 defeat.
It’s a given that both Leinster and Connacht are still dusting off the cobwebs in preparation for the new campaign, but with the opening day only 12 days away they’d want to get their act together fairly sharpish.
