Posted by Rugby Union is the most complicatedly simple sport in the world. I am absolutely convinced of it, and Friday night at the Arms Park only served to solidify that opinion in my mind.
The laws of the game are a legal minefield with more grey areas than a brutalist architect’s mood board. Some of the detail around pre-called attacking moves, defensive shapes and lineout routines need a full playbook to get the message across, while the careful management of players from a strength and conditioning point-of-view is a very precarious balancing act.
Yet some things remain true; make your tackles, win your aerial battles, concede fewer penalties and turnovers than your opposition, and be at least equivalent at the set piece and, statistically, a team is far more likely to win a game than lose it.
What we saw from Cardiff’s hosting Leinster in the middle of what can only be described as a monsoon at times, was a bare-faced example of the second of those paragraphs. Such was the level of moisture that any detail added to the attack was almost entirely lost by an inability of anyone on the field to hold on to the ball through a fast-paced or intricate move.
Gethin Jenkins’ defence came to the fore in a big way, making more tackles, more dominant tackles, restricting the visitors to five line breaks, four 22 entries and just one try, turning them over eight times and, crucially, conceding just three penalties on a night where field position and discipline were absolutely everything.
That was then backed up by a dominant kicking and aerial performance that saw Cardiff kick the ball 48 times and retain 14 of those, while restricting Leinster to just six retentions from their 36 times putting boot to ball. Aled Davies led that kicking battle from scrum-half, while Jacob Beetham was imperious in the air.
As well as that though, Friday night was a win for guts and experience. As well as Davies the likes of Liam Belcher, Javan Sebastian, Josh McNally, Dan Thomas and Callum Sheedy all led from the front as senior members of the squad who have been around the block a bit and know what it takes to scrap it out in tough conditions.
And now just scrap it out in-play. Too often we’ve seen a Leinster test window squad of youngsters with a few older heads littered around them come up against the Blue & Blacks and bully us. That wasn’t the case this time with the tone set by George Nott laying the law down with fresh-faced opposite number Alan Spicer after he tried to leave one on him from kick-off.
In fact so rattled were the visiting coaches by seeing their next generation put on the back foot by Cardiff that we saw the likes of Rabah Slimani and RG Snyman hauled off the bench before the game had even reached half-time, and even then their impact was negligible beyond one questionably awarded scrum penalty.
It was not only a night where previous iterations of the Blue & Blacks would have lost, but it’s also the fixtures that need to be won if a United Rugby Championship play-off spot is going to be secured. It’s all well and good winning when the entire squad is available, but winning in the dark days of February during international windows are when seasons are made or broken.
The tasks don’t get any easier for Corniel Van Zyl’s third-place side with the South Africa trip up next where Bulls and then Sharks await, but the squad should head to the southern hemisphere safe in the knowledge that they can and will compete with anyone in this league. And we’ve beaten the Sharks in Durban before, of course.
It’s all aboard the hype train for now though, where we’re looking up the table and not over our shoulders. A home knockout game anyone? It’s still a long way off but this team just keep ticking the boxes when it comes to important wins, so why not start dreaming…
Cardiff Rugby Life 