Leinster 33

Dragons 10

Rob Cole reports from Rodney Parade

LEINSTER MOVED FROM ninth to second in the BKT United Rugby Championship table on the back of a five-star, five-try performance in horrible conditions at Rodney Parade.

Dan Sheehan enjoyed his first game as captain as he scored the opening try, made another and saw his side home to a third win on the bounce. The Bulls and Glasgow Warriors had both moved onto 15 points with away wins over the Round 4 weekend, but Leinster’s win put them alongside the top two on 15 points.

For the pretty toothless Dragons it was a fourth straight defeat and they didn’t help themselves. Their Wales World Cup flanker Taine Basham was given a red card for a pretty needless and unsubtle elbow to the head of Byrne, while four minutes later Matthew Screech saw yellow for a shoulder into the head of Rob Russell.

It took Sheehan a mere nine minutes to notch the first points as he converted a driving line-out into a simple try which Byrne improved. That position came after the Leinster front row had squeezed the first of a stream of penalties out of the home scrum.

Cai Evans responded with a penalty, but a second try four minutes before the break for the visitors stretched their lead. Forced to take a line-out throw instead of a scrum in their 22, the dragons lost the ball and found themselves defending a five-metre scrum.

They once again conceded a penalty, and this time Sheehan organised a dummy tap penalty move. He went to take the kick, but moved away to allow scrum half Ben Murphy to jump in, feed No 8 James Culhane moving the other way and he sent Tom Clarkson over to make it 14-3 at half-time.

It took less than a minute of the second half before Sheehan had inspired the third try. This time he started a move on half-way after the Dragons had lost the ball before popping up in support to help Ciaran Frawley score in the right corner.

Once again Bryne hit the target to make it 21-3, but then the Dragons had their best period. After some good forward pressure near the Leinster line, scrum half Rhodri Williams threaded the ball through the thin blue line towards the posts and centre Aneurin Owen raced onto the kick to dive and score a try that Evans improved.

Leinster’s bnus-point try came just after the hour mark as a Byrne cross kick to replacement wing Russell paved the way for Charlie Ngatai to cross. The final nail in the Dragons coffin came in added time as Scott Penny rolled over from another driving line out for Byrne to convert.

Dragons scorers

Try: A Owen; Con: C Evans;

Penalty: C Evans.

Leinster scorers:

Tries: D Sheehan, T Clarkson, C Frawley, C Ngatai, S Penny:

Cons: R Byrne 4

Dragons: Cai Evans; Rio Dyer, Steff Hughes (captain, Jack Dixon 76), Aneurin Owen, Jared Rosser (Ewan Rosser; Will Reed, Rhodri Williams (Dane Blacker 65); Rhodri Jones (Aki Seiuli 64), Elliot Dee (James Benjamin 64), Lloyd Fairbrother (Luke Yendle 64), Matthew Screech, George Nott, Dan Lydiate (Sean Lonsdale 68), Taine Basham, Aaron Wainwright (Ryan Woodman 49)

RC: T Basham 66
YC: M Screech 70

Leinster: Ciarán Frawley; Tommy O’Brien (Rob Russell 63), Jamie Osborne, Charlie Ngatai (Harry Byrne 65), Jimmy O’Brien; Ross Byrne, Ben Murphy (Cormac Foley 49); Jack Boyle (Paddy McCarthy 64), Dan Sheehan (captain, Lee Barron 64), Thomas Clarkson (Michael Ala’alatoa 50), Joe McCarthy, Jason Jenkins (Max Deegan 65), Ryan Baird (Jason Jenkins 69), Will Connors (Scott Penny 69), James Culhane

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