SUNDAY HERALD REPORTS

Glasgow are blown away despite a bright start against Leinster
Leinster 36 - 13 GlasgowCraig Emerson at RDS Showground
FOR THE 10,000 or so who attended last night's penultimate Magners League match, Leinster's late show with four tries inside the final 20 minutes, proved the right tonic ahead of next week's Heineken cup semi-final at Croke Park.

Leinster had enough ammunition up front in the pack but not before Glasgow had caused them some trouble in the opening period.

Max Evans grubber which set up Kelly Brown for a try in the corner early on is maybe something that Leinster's semi-final's opponents, Munster, may take a look at ahead of their forthcoming semi-final. Indeed, the concession of two soft tries in the first half will be a cause of concern for Michael Cheika but thankfully Leinster went in to the break just trailing by the one try.

Leinster's Felipe Contepomi had put his team in front with a penalty in four minutes before Jackson returned the favour three minutes later.

Then came Glasgow's opening try on 12 minutes when Evans cleverly chipped through for Brown to touch down just inside the corner flag.

Nonetheless Leinster were now beginning to get up close and personal up front as the pack began to close down the space and they were back on level terms on the quarter-hour when off a lineout inside the Glasgow 22, Devin Toner made the tap down before supplying Leinster's No 6, Rocky Elstrom, who made the short dash over the line but Contepomi was unsuccessful with his conversion attempt.The Argentine then saw another effort come back off the posts just after the half-hour and his misses were to prove costly when in 40 minutes an opportunistic intervention by Max Evans inside the Leinster 22 saw wing Lome Fa'Tau kick ahead before touching down.

Glasgow were to have full-back Bernardo Stortoni sin-binned shortly after that, during which time Leinster almost went over for a second try, Gordon D'Arcy just having the ball knocked out his ahnds by Max Evans deep into the injury time.

It was 13-8 to Glasgow at the interval and although Stortoni was to return from his exile three minutes after the interval, there were two more yellows brandished by the match referee with both Jamie Heaslip and Kelly Brown sent packing. With both teams reduced to 14 men, Leinster then ran in two quick tries, the first coming just short of the hour when a quick release by Johnny Sexton allowed Shane Horgan to race over in the right corner.

Four minutes later, O'Driscoll broke through the middle before sending Sean O' Brien under the posts.

Contepomi added the conversion and as Glasgow's defence began to tire, Leinster picked up two more tries through Sexton and O'Brien to give the final scoreline a more accurate look on the balance of play.

This article was posted on 26-Apr-2009, 07:26 by Hugh Barrow.