Leinster Rugby vs Bulls
United Rugby Championship, Semi-Final
RDS Arena, Dublin
Saturday, 10th June 2022, 19:35

TV: Live: Premier Sports, TG4

Leinster responded to the disappointment of the previous week by crushing Glasgow last week.

If there was any moping going on, Glasgow's early try snapped them out of it. On the back of Richie Gray's moronic yellow card, Leinster took control of the game. The second half was frankly embarrassing for Glasgow as Leinster seemed to be playing a game of sevens scoring virtually every time they made a line break. In truth a team putting up seventy six points in a knock-out game isn't great for the tournament either and Glasgow coach Danny Wilson was let go the next day.

However it's pretty certain that the Bulls will prove more difficult opponents tomorrow evening. True, Leinster did beat the Bulls 31-3 in the first match of the season at the Aviva. But the Bulls, like all the South African teams, have improved massively especially in the second half of the season when they could play their backlog of home games. The Bulls arrive with the confidence of eight wins from the last nine games in the competition. This includes their last minute win last week in the quarter-final over the Sharks. The Bulls had let a 27-13 lead slip to 27-all so they needed a Chris Smith drop goal to win it at the death.

Their coach Jake White is a canny operator who battled against Leinster most recently when he had a spell coaching Montpellier. White has named an unchanged team from last week including the three Bulls players named in the URC team of the year in hooker Johan Grobbelaar, lock Ruan Nortje and back row Marcell Coetzee. Coetzee has been superb throughout the season and is a good bet for URC player of the season.

For Leinster there are just the two changes to the starting line-up from last week. Robbie Henshaw comes back in at inside centre in the only change to the backline. In the pack Jack Conan is named at number eight which means Caelan Doris moves back to blindside flanker. Ryan Baird and Ciaran Frawley drop to the bench where they're joined by a fit again Johnny Sexton.

The Bulls will try to bring the type of physical challenge that La Rochelle did to the Leinster pack to slow down their ruck ball. They also have plenty of dangerous runners out wide in the likes of Canan Moodie, Cornal Hendricks and Madosh Tambwe if they get some decent ball themselves. However Leinster should be able to match them and march onto their fifth league final in a row.

by Jim O'Connor, © 2022-06-09