Leinster blown away by the Stormers

Peter Burke

I knew It would happen I just knew it, Leinster would travel to South Africa with a young and relatively inexperienced squad to play against two fully loaded South African sides i.e. the Lions and the Stormers and when it didn’t work out in Leinsters favour a certain cohort of Leinster supporters would be crying foul.

‘A travesty Leo should apologise for wasting travelling supporters money’, ‘Leo should resign’, ‘I’m shocked we have lost twice in a row’, ‘I’m stunned…..’ and blah de blah and so on.

One Leinster supporter, sensibly, bucked the trend and took a far more pragmatic approach to proceedings saying: –  “Lots of pissed off fans manning their keyboards this evening! Look folks, lets get some perspective here. 15 possible points left in the regular season, and we’ve dropped into 2nd place by 4 points. We have Ospreys at home, Ulster away, and Connacht at home to get these points. Meanwhile, Glasgow have a trip down South to take care of still, and in that respect they have a tougher run in to the end of the season. All the while, we have a European SF next week to focus on that no other team in the URC has to worry about. Yes, we lost 2 games on the bounce (emphatically it must be said), but these games will stand far more for the young lads coming through the ranks than easy wins against let’s say the Dragons, or Zebre in the RDS. It’s painful to watch, all the more so because as fans, we’re spoilt and we’re not used to it. I think the coaches knew exactly what to expect over the last 2 weeks though the scoreline the Lions put on us may have shocked a little, the result in itself was probably expected. No one wants to see performances like these, but they do happen, and far better they happen now than when it really counts.” – Martin Loughrey posting in the Facebook group ‘Leinster Rugby Fans Forum’

He’s right in everything he says.

The game itself well it wasn’t great by Leinster lets be honest and after an opening four minutes full of mistakes, the  Stormers took advantage when a loose pass from Cormac Foley was taken by Loader with open arms and it was a foot race with only one winner for the touch down with Libbok sending over the simple conversion.

Libbok got a few things right and he’s highly over rated in my view, but he extended the lead to 10-0 at the 20 min mark as Leinster were penalised for being offside at the ruck and another penalty 10 minutes before the interval stretched their advantage further.

Libbok added a third penalty before the Stormers’ scored again as Moerat burrowed his way over from a penalty advantage and Libbok’s converted.

The Stormers started the second 40 as they finished the first with Jantjies claiming the ball from a ruck and darted between some non existent Leinster cover tackling to run unopposed to the line.

But Leinster would not lie down and battled their way back into the game as Deegan powered his way over from close range following a penalty five metres out, then soon after offering his assistance to Rob Russell to cross the whitewash.

However the Stormers were not finished yet they secured the bonus point when Engelbrecht went through a weak tackle attempt from Henry McErlean to score with Gelant putting the icing on the cake with a superb individual try.

Leinster lose their top spot to Glasgow but there’s plenty to play for.

All in all a couple of weeks to take from it what you will as a player but for the fans it probably wont be top subject matter of too many chats.