Leinster Suffer Rare Home Defeat

Leinster’s 28-match winning streak in regular season games at the RDS was brought to an end, despite the province enjoying the majority of possession and an amount of time in the visitors’ 22.

Peter Horne came off the bench to score a crucial second half try as Glasgow Warriors won away to Leinster for the first time.

The hosts’ attack was well off its best in a below par display with lock Nick Campbell (try) and place-kickers Scott Wight and Duncan Weir completing the Scottish side’s scoring.

An Isa Nacewa penalty gave Leinster a 3-0 lead inside three minutes but despite young out-half Ian Madigan and Nacewa showing glimpses of their attacking prowess, they faltered in the final third.

Glasgow had the opportunity to level the scores after 12 minutes but Wight’s penalty from halfway cannoned back off the right hand post.

Leinster responded with another period of sustained pressure, yet a second Nacewa penalty was all they could show for a 10-minute spell inside the Glasgow half.

Wight made up for his earlier miss when he split the posts with a penalty from the right. Leinster were then left ruing their missed chances on the half hour when Campbell dived over after Leinster failed to clear their lines. Wight converted to give Sean Lineen’s men a 10-6 advantage.

Leinster’s stuttering attack finally crossed the whitewash approaching half-time. David Kearney broke into the Glasgow 22 and linked with Dominic Ryan who offloaded for Madigan to score by the posts. Nacewa added the conversion to give the home side a deserved 13-10 lead at the break.

Glasgow’s replacement out-half Weir and Nacewa exchanged penalties in the opening five minutes after the restart before play was held up for what looked like a serious injury to flanker Ryan. Nacewa and Weir again traded penalties, following the sin-binning of Glasgow captain Rob Harley.

At 19-16, Leinster seemed to be in control but again they lacked a clinical edge and failed to convert their pressure into points. It came back to haunt them when Horne skated through the home defence for a 54th minute try which Weir added the extras to.

Joe Schmidt had to withdraw Luke Fitzgerald after he picked up a knock – Brendan Macken, a try scorer against the Dragons last weekend, came on in his place. Kevin McLaughlin also picked up a worrying injury which will require a scan.

The province recycled the ball well from a lineout after Madigan found touch but were held up by a resolute Glasgow defence on a number of occasions, and the Warriors held on to claim their first league points since last April.

Speaking afterwards, Schmidt said: “Yeah, we’re gutted. That is an incredibly frustrating night for us at the office.

“The injuries are continuing to mount, I think losing Dominic Ryan and Kevin McLaughlin and Luke Fitzgerald coming off, we really are struggling for numbers.

“A couple of young guys got a boost tonight, young Jordi Murphy, I guess we’ll see a little bit more of them in the near future.

“It doesn’t look good for the two boys who went down. We are going to have to wait over the next 48 hours to get scans and get the feedback on both himself (Ryan) and Kevin.

“The result is really tough to take. I thought we played a lot of good footie to be honest and I know it doesn’t look good on the scoreboard, but there was a lot of frustration around the ruck area and I am pretty disappointed.”