THERE MUST HAVE been a split second of dread for Brian O’Driscoll when Mauro Bergamasco took him for a ride in Italy at the weekend.
The Leinster centre shot forward as a dummy runner as Jonathan Sexton located Rob Kearney. Bergamasco had his number, scooped him off the pitch and drove him back to earth with interest. O’Driscoll wrestled briefly with the flanker on the turf before seeking out the match officials.
The immediate, on-field decision was advantage to Zebre for a knock forward. Leinster coach Joe Schmidt spoke after the game about his players needing greater protection. Bergamasco has yet to be cited.
Speaking about the incident to TheScore.ie, O’Driscoll said, “It’s sometimes nice to be tackled when you have the ball.
“It’s not for me to be worrying about. You hope the match officials are going to take action on those occasions. I’ll try and put my faith in their hands.”
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Leinster squandered a 17-13 lead against Zebre to go in level at the break. O’Driscoll and his teammates upped their game in the second half before eventually securing the bonus point win.
“I think we were guilty of just seeing out the half before its time,” said the 34-year-old. “You can’t do that. You have to literally play it out until the clock goes red and the ball goes dead. We switched off a little bit and that’s irritating. Joe has picked up on that this week and we certainly can’t afford to do anything like that and expect to go through the motions and see out games.”
O’Driscoll paid credit to the players that earned Leinster five league wins while the international contingent were on Six Nations. When the Ireland players returned to the fold there was ‘a hiccup’ against Ulster but valuable wins over Wasps and Munster followed.
Looking ahead to the Amlin Cup match against Biarritz, O’Driscoll feels the area of Leinster’s game that needs most attention is defence [88 points conceded in the last five matches]. He said:
If you’re allowing them to get 20/25 points, having go go out and get 30 and 40 points yourselves, against better teams it will be tougher. We want to cut down on errors in defence and keep their points as low as possible. Any attacks we create ourselves and points we score after that will be a bonus.”
O’Driscoll joked about enduring more than a few sleepless nights since the arrival of his daughter, Sadie, but still found time to watch videos of a Biarritz team that are 11th in the French Top 14.
“They look like a side that should be much further up the league than that… Any team that manages to be in the last 11 Heineken Cups in a row, coming out of the French league, that’s pretty good going.
“They’re going to be tough opposition but we’d like to think we’d be a handful ourselves.”
TheScore.ie will be liveblogging all the Challenge Cup action from 2pm this Saturday.
Bergamasco doesn’t “drop” him at all. He clearly wraps and holds on to O’Driscoll throughout the tackle. Saying that he “dropped him ball to earth with interest” (particular when dropping is part of what constitutes a dangerous tackle) is simply wrong.
Agree there will be NO citing! A perfectly good tackle !
Perfectly good tackle? – except he didn’t have the ball!!!
IRB Law 10.4J
Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player’s feet are still off the ground such that the player’s head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play. – for clarification see http://www.irblaws.com/content/video_popup_ver6.php?v=laws/2047-lifting-tackle
The offence is dropping OR driving the player into the ground
Also under 10.4F
Playing an opponent without the ball. Except in a scrum, ruck or maul, a player who is not in possession of the ball must not hold, push or obstruct an opponent not carrying the ball.
Both of these are penalty offences – as there were not picked up on the field of play they should have been reviewed/referred by the citing officer.
Dummy runner/blocking he deserved to bd taken out .
Zohar – that’s all bollix . Apparently the citing officer knows jack sh1t according to you. Perfectly good tackle
I would suggest you start here
http://www.irblaws.com/index.php?law=showallbynumbers
Typical typos in The Irish Times this morning – page 3 has Leinster playing on Friday @ 2.30pm instead of Saturday.
By the weekend The Irish Times will have Leinster in the Heino.
Did u not know there is only one irish team playing this weekend. The other one is just fulfilling a fixture according to the media. 20 injured, 1 that should be serving 10-15 years and playing against the greatest team the world has ever seen (that forgot to register an out half).
will you have to come out from under the bridge to watch the games this weekend ?
Leinster, like many teams, seal off rucks “aggressively”. To the extent they do so on the opposition’s side. In other words, from off-side positions.
Dummy runners, regardless of who utilises them, court obstruction.
Players in these situations have to be aware of the risks they run in being taken out and it is disingenuous of Schmidt to claim otherwise.
It’s strange. The more porous the Leinster defence, the more critical of officials Schmidt becomes.
is the journal.ie in love with o’driscoll or is the journal part of his p.r. machine?? prob an article on o’driscoll every other day! talk about sean o’ brien ffs! a real man!
O’Driscoll and D’Arcy were the 2 players out to face the media yesterday. Here’s a Sean O’Brien pic that should cheer you up – http://inpho.ie/media/JdWuD4hchwGzUrnw6bOF5w..a?ts=Wzi4MWJJQTeCzzjGZPy9XLsqxIXrflPfr76xuUgVzvA.a
Tackling a player without the ball is a penalty, full stop.