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Leinster will be aiming to maintain their winning start to the Heineken Cup when they welcome Castres to the RDS on Saturday. - 17/10/2013 12:49
Leinster need just one match point to reach the Heineken Cup quarter-finals for the tenth time in 13 years.
Last season the reigning champions lifted the Amlin Challenge Cup after successive defeats to Clermont-Auvergne halted the defence of their title.
But victory in France last week – against Castres Olympique – has left them on the brink of yet another appearance in the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup.
Jimmy Gopperth proved the catalyst for Leinster’s 29-22 victory with 21 points, including two tries, and the fly-half has set his team-mates the challenge of not only booking their passage, but doing as much as they can to even earn a home quarter-final tie.
“Of course you want a home quarter and, to achieve that, we’ve got to win the game against the Ospreys,” said Gopperth.
“We’ve just got to make sure we get the points on the board early, make sure we win first and let the game take care of itself after that. Hopefully we’ll get a good outcome from it.”
Leinster, four points clear of Northampton Saints in Pool 1, kick-off with the fewest points of all the pool leaders. But with Ulster, Toulouse and Toulon all playing away from home in Round 6, the Irish province hope to lay down a marker on Friday night at the RDS Showground.
To do that they must once again get the better of Ospreys having won 19-9 at the Liberty Stadium in Round 1. The Welsh region, four points below Castres at the bottom of the Pool, are looking to avoid their lowest finish in the Heineken Cup for a decade having managed just one win from their previous five games.
“We’re out of the competition and it’s very frustrating because we have been our own worst enemies at times during the campaign,” said captain Alun Wyn Jones.
“We did OK against Leinster in the first game and had enough possession in the first and second half but it’s what you do with it that counts and we didn’t do enough.”
Match notes
Leinster need just one match point from Friday’s game to be confirmed as pool winners.
The three-time champions’ 19-9 defeat of Ospreys in Round 1 was the only previous Heineken Cup meeting between the clubs.
Ospreys missed more than twice as many tackles (20) as Leinster (9) when the sides met in round one.
Dan Biggar is the tournament’s top points scorer after five rounds with 62. The Ospreys out half has yet to miss a shot at goal (20/20).
Justin Tipuric has won more turnovers (13) than any other player after five rounds.
Leinster have won their last six home games against Welsh clubs in the Heineken Cup; their last defeat was to Scarlets in 1998.
Ospreys have lost three of four visits to Ireland in the Heineken Cup. All three defeats were by Munster with the victory coming against Ulster.
Leinster have averaged more clean breaks per game (8.8) than any other side so far this season.
Biggar (6th – 1,552) and Jamie Heaslip (10th – 1,426) are among the top 10 players in the Heineken Cup this season according to the Amlin Opta Index.
After five rounds of Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup action, Leinster are ranked as the sixth-best club on the Amlin Opta Index.
Done and dusted - Leinster Rugby have taken the Pool 1 honours and qualified for the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup for the 10th time in 13 years. - 17/01/2014 22:15
Done and dusted – Leinster Rugby have taken the Pool 1 honours and qualified for the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup for the 10th time in 13 years.
They went into the RDS showdown against the Ospreys requiring just a single point to book their quarter-final place but Matt O’Connor’s team ultimately did it with the maximum five points, albeit in what was frequently a stop-start affair that lacked any real fluency or momentum.
However, the triple Heineken Cup champions and reigning Amlin Challenge Cup holders, who are chasing a fifth European crown in just six seasons, now face an anxious wait to find out if they have done enough overall to clinch home advantage in the last eight on the first weekend of April or if they will be on the road.
But, while Leinster were celebrating their place among the elite clubs chasing glory in the 19th campaign of European club rugby’s premier tournament, the Ospreys – reduced to 14 men when international lock Ian Evans was red carded after 20 minutes – were left with just a single group win and their worst tournament finish for a decade.
With any qualification pressure well and truly off the Welsh region they gave Leinster plenty to think about in the opening exchanges, particularly with the tactical kicking of outside half Dan Biggar. But Adam Jones was penalised at the opening scrum and Jimmy Gopperth, who contributed 21 points in the 29-22 win at Castres Olympique in Round 5, had the simple task of getting the home side off the mark.
Those three points came from Leinster’s first visit into the Ospreys’ 22 but 100% man Biggar hit back immediately with his long-range penalty going over via the crossbar to level matters.
Incredibly, it was Biggar’s 21st goal kicking success from 21 attempts in this season’s tournament but that was followed by lengthy TMO intervention that ended with Evans being sent off by French referee Romain Poite and Mike McCarthy departing for medical treatment following an incident at a ruck.
That reduced the Ospreys to 14 men for the final hour and when they were penalised for pulling down a driving maul the referee awarded the home side a penalty try that Gopperth had the simple task of converting.
The outside half then went close to doing it with the ball in hand following great work by Martin Moore but a second try was only briefly delayed before loosehead prop Cian Healy crashed over, Gopperth converting to open up a commanding 14-point advantage at the break.
The Ospreys, forced to replace the dynamic Richard Hibbard at the break, then saw replacement hooker Scott Baldwin depart after lengthy treatment and referee Poite awarded Leinster a second penalty try following a scrum infringement, Gopperth adding the extra points.
The Leinster pack had the depleted Ospreys in rapid retreat at a scrum – but squandered another glorious try-scoring chance as they made hard work of notching up that bonus-point winning try.
Direct running by Jordi Murphy clinched try number four – Murphy also scored against Castres last weekend – and gave Leinster the bonus point and 22 match points from their group games.
The icing on the cake came with a fifth try from replacement Isaac Boss and now it is just a matter of who and where Leinster play in the prestigious April quarter-finals.
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