By David Parsons
Cardiff coach Matt Sherratt has described the Irish teams as “slow poison” after another weekend when the Welsh regions were all left feeling sick.
All four of them lost in the United Rugby Championship – with the Scarlets, the Dragons and Cardiff all being beaten by opponents from Ireland.
The Scarlets lost 26-10 to Connacht, the Dragons went down 49-26 against Ulster, and Cardiff were beaten 33-20 at home to Leinster.
Earlier, on Friday night, the Ospreys – the only Welsh region in the top 10 of a 16-team table – were beaten 19-15 at Edinburgh.
Sherratt said he was fairly pleased with Cardiff’s defeat, even though Leinster won by a margin of 13-points and collected a bonus point in scoring five tries.
His upbeat tone was an indication of the relative strengths of the Irish teams compared to the Welsh sides who have a combined tally of 13 victories from 44 matches so far.
“The Irish teams are a little bit like slow poison,” said Sherratt.
“You can be 21-7 against them and in the blink of an eye you can suddenly be 20 or 30 points down.
CAIS CAERDYDD
Rhys Carré ar y llwybr tarw! Does dim modd i amddiffyn Leinster atal y prop rhyngwladol ac mae Caerdydd nôl yn y gêm.
There’s no stopping the Cardiff loosehead from that range!
⚫v
@S4C
English Commentary#BKTURC | @Cardiff_Rugby pic.twitter.com/8LBuXaJJ7P— S4C Rygbi (@S4CRygbi) March 2, 2024
“They go through a lot of phases and it takes your legs away.
“All in all, we gave a decent performance but we didn’t really cash in on the chances we had and we didn’t have much luck, either.
“But the Irish teams keep the ball for five or 10 minutes and in the end it hurts your lungs and your legs.”
Leinster moved back to the top of the URC table after being briefly knocked off the top by the Bulls, but were forced to work much harder for victory than many thought.
After racing into a 12-point lead in as many minutes, they found themselves trailing at the interval and forced to dig deep to regain their advantage over title rivals the Bulls and Glasgow Warriors.
In the end, the power of the Leo Cullen’s pack and replacements bench enabled them to come from behind to bag another vitally important bonus-point win on the road.
Cardiff’s spirited revival this season has seen them garner bigger crowds and get 12 of their players into Warren Gatland’s Wales Six Nations squad.
They have given youth their chance and seemingly flourished.
Up!
Jordan Larmour of Leinster contests a high ball with Ben Thomas of Cardiff during the URC match at Cardiff Arms Park.
@HarryAMurphy https://t.co/goEucn8ItB pic.twitter.com/HKizKajHQB
— sportsfile (@sportsfile) March 2, 2024
The only problem for the Arms Park faithful is that the improvement in performances hasn’t been accompanied by an improvement in results.
They came into this game seeking their first win of the year and knowing they couldn’t rise higher than their current standing of 12th even if they pulled off another miraculous win.
They still talk in reverential terms about their 29-27 win over Leinster two years ago. No doubt Leo Cullen mentioned that result in his pre-match address and his side started particularly well.
Two tries flowed in the opening 10 minutes and the back line had blown enough holes in the home defence to sink a battleship.
The opening score came from wing Rob Russell after some neat play from his front five.
Home outside-half Tinus de Beer had his kick downfield near half-way charged down by Ross Molony and the ricochet went straight to tight head prop Tom Clarkson.
He ran straight and hard before giving Russell a free 40-metre race to the posts for a try that Ross Byrne converted.
Cardiff lost skipper No 8 Lopeti Tmani a minute later and then coughed up three successive penalties in their own 22.
One line dive and two tap-and-go five metre penalties later and Max Deegan burrowed his way over for the second try.
It seemed like the perfect pay back for 2022, yet over the course of the next half-an-hour the gutsy home side hit back with a De Beer penalty and conversion of the first of two tries from loose head prop Rhys Carre to take a 15-12 lead into the break.
You had to go back to 1 January for the last Leinster loss, a bruising 22-21 defeat in Dublin to Ulster, and just for a brief moment there were a few who dared to dream in the Welsh capital.
It didn’t help Leinster’s cause that Jordan Larmour, celebrating his 100th game for the province, was off the field for 10 minutes either side of the interval after picking up a yellow card.
The visitors started the second half with a bang.
They thought they had edged ahead when Tom Clarkson burrowed over from a metre out, but that try was ruled out by the TMO after Byrne had hit the post with his conversion.
It didn’t matter, though, because three minutes later Michael Milne got over the line and this time Byrne added the extras.
Flushed with success, Milne added a second on the hour mark to bag the bonus-point.
Another replacement front rower, John McKee, added a fifth and Cardiff bagged their third through Aled Summerhill as they fought to the end.