Faced with a limited yet determined Clermont team, Leinster’s attack struggled throughout while their lineout work repeatedly let them down. There were enough holes in the performance to leave the Leinster dressing feeling frustrated about their night’s work, despite maintaining their 100% start in the tournament.
Not that it was all bad. The above frustrations aside, it was a decent night for Jacques Nienaber as Leinster held the visitors scoreless for 75 minutes. Clermont provided the game’s opening score in the opening five minutes when Irae Simone’s kick triggered a move which ended with Alivereti Raka scoring from close range.
Clermont rarely threatened thereafter, with their forays into the Leinster half met with a strong defensive effort – including Andrew Porter’s exceptional effort to chase back and prevent an end-to-end counterattack score. The province’s scrum was also excellent, winning a series of important penalties to relieve Clermont pressure.
On the other side of the ball Sam Prendergast built on his fine showing in Bristol last weekend with a handful of decisive moments. He played a key role in both of Leinster’s tries before winning and scoring the penalty that provided their only points of the second half.
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Leinster's Sam Prendergast with fans after the game. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
It wasn’t a perfect outing by the 21-year-old, who will be frustrated with two poor missed kicks to touch, but head coach Leo Cullen has been encouraged by how Prendergast led the team across what were his first two Champions Cup starts.
“Sam was good, yeah. Tricky conditions again and Clermont are a very, very physical team,” Cullen said.
“I thought there were some really good touches, particularly in the first half, a lovely bit of play for Gary’s [Ringrose] first try as an example. And again, you have a young 21-year-old 10 so he’s picking up experience there all the time. It’s fantastic.
“And it’s great to see the likes of Fintan Gunne coming off the bench for his Champions Cup debut, Andrew Osborne the same. So it’s just getting more and more experience into those younger players, and they’ve got to go through it.
“It wasn’t perfect tonight, it wasn’t perfect in parts last week. So there’s a hell of a lot of scope I think for us as a team to get better.
But listen, Sam is making great progress. Think to where he was this time last year, so many facets of his game that have kicked on to another level, and hopefully we’ll continue to see that progress now.”
It was more of a mixed night for Jordie Barrett, who started a game at fullback for the first time since November 2022. Making his home debut and first Leinster start, Barrett had some difficult moments in the first half but added some smart touches and took his try well – using his strength to power through two Clermont defenders to score Leinster’s second try.
“He’s got many strings to his bow,” said Cullen.
“You think even to the lead into his try where we obviously we go the length of the field, he picks up on a turnover, there’s some good scramble defence and then we go the length of the field and off that penalty in front of the posts we get in for a nicely worked try. And he got in for a try last week. It’s a great start for him in terms of his Leinster career.
“We’ve seen him play at 12 for 40 minutes and we’ve seen him play at 15 for 80 minutes. He’s probably more comfortable playing 12 just because that’s where he’s played more. So again, we’re starting that journey or whatever way you want to put it. It’s positive that he’s up and running as a Leinster player now.
“And again it’s just growing the collective understanding and that’s the challenge of this time of year where you have a group… Tyler coming as a new coach, there’s lots of freshness there in the group so it’s just making sure that we continue to work hard to build towards a more cohesive, complete performance.”
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'Sam is making great progress. So many facets of his game have kicked on to another level'
A WIN IS a win, but the overriding feeling inside the Aviva Stadium last night was that Leinster’s 15-7 success over Clermont was not one to be feeling overly merry about.
Faced with a limited yet determined Clermont team, Leinster’s attack struggled throughout while their lineout work repeatedly let them down. There were enough holes in the performance to leave the Leinster dressing feeling frustrated about their night’s work, despite maintaining their 100% start in the tournament.
Not that it was all bad. The above frustrations aside, it was a decent night for Jacques Nienaber as Leinster held the visitors scoreless for 75 minutes. Clermont provided the game’s opening score in the opening five minutes when Irae Simone’s kick triggered a move which ended with Alivereti Raka scoring from close range.
Clermont rarely threatened thereafter, with their forays into the Leinster half met with a strong defensive effort – including Andrew Porter’s exceptional effort to chase back and prevent an end-to-end counterattack score. The province’s scrum was also excellent, winning a series of important penalties to relieve Clermont pressure.
On the other side of the ball Sam Prendergast built on his fine showing in Bristol last weekend with a handful of decisive moments. He played a key role in both of Leinster’s tries before winning and scoring the penalty that provided their only points of the second half.
It wasn’t a perfect outing by the 21-year-old, who will be frustrated with two poor missed kicks to touch, but head coach Leo Cullen has been encouraged by how Prendergast led the team across what were his first two Champions Cup starts.
“Sam was good, yeah. Tricky conditions again and Clermont are a very, very physical team,” Cullen said.
“I thought there were some really good touches, particularly in the first half, a lovely bit of play for Gary’s [Ringrose] first try as an example. And again, you have a young 21-year-old 10 so he’s picking up experience there all the time. It’s fantastic.
“And it’s great to see the likes of Fintan Gunne coming off the bench for his Champions Cup debut, Andrew Osborne the same. So it’s just getting more and more experience into those younger players, and they’ve got to go through it.
“It wasn’t perfect tonight, it wasn’t perfect in parts last week. So there’s a hell of a lot of scope I think for us as a team to get better.
It was more of a mixed night for Jordie Barrett, who started a game at fullback for the first time since November 2022. Making his home debut and first Leinster start, Barrett had some difficult moments in the first half but added some smart touches and took his try well – using his strength to power through two Clermont defenders to score Leinster’s second try.
“He’s got many strings to his bow,” said Cullen.
“You think even to the lead into his try where we obviously we go the length of the field, he picks up on a turnover, there’s some good scramble defence and then we go the length of the field and off that penalty in front of the posts we get in for a nicely worked try. And he got in for a try last week. It’s a great start for him in terms of his Leinster career.
“We’ve seen him play at 12 for 40 minutes and we’ve seen him play at 15 for 80 minutes. He’s probably more comfortable playing 12 just because that’s where he’s played more. So again, we’re starting that journey or whatever way you want to put it. It’s positive that he’s up and running as a Leinster player now.
“And again it’s just growing the collective understanding and that’s the challenge of this time of year where you have a group… Tyler coming as a new coach, there’s lots of freshness there in the group so it’s just making sure that we continue to work hard to build towards a more cohesive, complete performance.”
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European Rugby Champions Cup Leinster Rugby Sam Prendergast Top 10