Leinster v Munster at Croke Park in round 4, this match should have been later in the season - what on earth were the URC thinking
Following three trophy-less seasons it is clear Leinster need challenging games post-Six Nation and ahead of Champions Cup and URC knock-outs, not in October writes One F in Foley
It is brilliant that Leinster are meeting Munster at Croke Park later this evening,
The match promises to be a wonderful spectacle, and is bound to be pure theatre no matter who wins.
There is lots to love about their rivalry, so much history, and, of course, there was the Jones's Road 2009 Heineken Cup semi-final that changed our known rugby world.
At the same, and seriously, what on earth is going on that such a seismic, important game is being rolled out as a fourth round URC fixture?
Here's a thing; the IRFU and the provinces have an input into the URC fixtures, all those Christmas/New Year derbies aren't drawn by lottery.
READ MORE: Self-styled heavy metal Vikings at Leinster ready to make a splash against Munster
READ MORE: Leinster told they have more to fear from Munster than they do from the ghosts of Croke Park
Whoever rubber-stamped having this event this early in the rugby bloodstream hasn't read the runes, possibly hasn't noticed Leinster are trophy-less these last three seasons.
That is the Blues have become used to thrashing everyone in the Champions Cup pool stages and URC league proper. They have so many players, it becomes so easy, the logical conclusion of three trophy-less seasons is they end up undercooked come the knockouts.
Would anyone have planned the Normandy Landings (D-Day) by sending the marines ashore on D-Day and then waiting for D-Day-plus-six-months to send in the second wave? Of course not.
Leinster and, indeed, Munster would be better served with this fixture post-Six Nations and as part of the run to the knockouts, a game that would harden the attitude and the arteries, to work on being mean, focussed, irascible and greedy.
Moreover it is possible Leinster/IRFU, as a considerate big brother, don't want a non-Irish team playing at Croke Park, preferring to keep the holy ground so the other provinces' can experience such a unique 'Irish' thrill - that's okay, correct even.
But the reality is Leinster also play Munster on December 12 at Thomond and it could have been switched.
But most notable of all is an April 19 date with Ulster at the Aviva, just ahead of the season's high-end knockout rugby.
If Leinster's last three campaigns have suffered as they don't get tested enough in the run towards the beginning of the business end of the season, would this fixture be better later? Yup.
Either way and looking at this evening it contains some fascinating match-ups, think of Frawley against Crowley, the Munster back-row of O'Donogue-Hodnett-Coombes trying to force the pace against Leinster's international back-row, JGP against Casey...
Osbourne against Nankivell will tell us a lot about one of the brightest prospects to have hit Irish rugby in a long while.
While at the same time having the game pre-Christmas has brought one of the wackiest stories of Irish professional rugby to Leo Cullen's lips, had him talking of Rocky Elsom.
The stories of Rocky's time in Dublin are legion and, indeed, while he wasn't The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he was certainly the man about whom the last line of the Oscar winning John Wayne-James Stewart double-hander applied to:
"When the legend becomes fact (i.e. because so many people are saying it and believe it is true), print the legend!"
Thus some of the tall tales about Rocky now accepted as fact.
Rocky didn't train early in the week; Rocky would travel to games on his own the day before; Rocky, when he did attend training, often went for a sleep at the side of the pitch; Rocky didn't know most of their names; he didn't know most of the calls.
Certainly the Leinster players on that seminal 2008/09 were tantamount to stand-offish about him.
Press conferences would turn surreal if anyone was asked about Elsom, cue fidgeting, evasive answers and general lack of knowledge about the details of his exact role within the squad.
Coach Michael Cheika who had sourced and signed Elsom, seeing his extraordinary effect on the side when he was on the pitch, indulged him to astonishing lengths.
Cheika is a character and maybe it took one to recognise another but the back-row's Champions Cup performances were what broke the Heineken Cup mould for the eastern province.
Elsom took three European Man of the Match awards and another 10 in that season's domestic league campaign.
And while it is easy to say the Brian O'Driscoll-led side would have qualified from the pool, beaten Munster in the semis and Leicester in the final, they wouldn't have beaten Harlequins in the quarter-final without the Australian.
Leinster - as the Leinster collective did in at least one key game every season back then - froze at the Twickenham Stoop.
And it was a barnstorming Elsom who wasn't just Man of the Match, he was everywhere, tackled everything, set up every attack, probably made the half-time tea.
Indeed O'Driscoll and company 'knew' if they didn't lose there having been so overrun on the day, they weren't going to lose anywhere.
Either way, you can read the awe in which the Elsom legend is handed down at Leinster from Leo Cullen's description of an almost awestruck Leinster squad fascinated to see the man in person - yes, Elsom turned out to be a real person!
“He was just keen to come in," said the current Leinster coach of Rocky appearing pitchside at training in UCD last Tuesday. "It was just lucky the way the weeks fell really. It wasn’t planned to any great extent.
"A lot of curiosity, a lot of the players would have a fascination with Rocky, he was a fascinating character and he still is really. But, yeh, some guys went to have a quiet word at the side of the field and, yeh, he was very open about his time."
Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.
Related
Share this page
Guest Posts by Easy Branches
