RUGBY DAILY: Hugo Keenan back to his best, the Scott Penny impact and are Ireland closing the gap on England?
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Off the balls. Rugby daily. With Bank of Ireland. A proud sponsor of Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster Rugby. Never stop competing. Welcome along to Monday's Rugby Daily. I'm David Wilson. Coming up today, we look back at a huge weekend of rugby, both internationally and domestically, as Leinster booked their spot in the Champions Cup semi-final and Ireland begin their women's Six Nations campaign with a defeat to England. Leinster ran in six tries as they trounced Sale 43-13 to book their place in the Investec Champions Cup semi-finals on Saturday in our live commentary game. The home side got off to the perfect start at the Aviva Stadium when, after they had secured line-out ball, They went through the phases before hooker Dan Sheehan crashed over to score a 10th minute try and Harry Byrne added the conversion.
Sharks reduced the deficit 6 minutes before the break with a penalty from England fly half George Ford. They were down to 14 men with 4 minutes left on the clock when number 8 Dan Dupria was shown a yellow card for a deliberate knock on. Fullback Hugo Keenan stretched Leinster's lead with a second try three minutes after the restart and prop Simon McIntyre's yellow card for a high tackle did not aid sales cause despite a second forward penalty. Flanker Ryan Baird crossed for a third try for the hosts and wingers Rico Ioane and Tommy O'Brien followed suit with Byrne adding the conversions. Sale replacements Alex Willis touched down in the corner and forward obliged with the extras but a Byrne penalty and a converted Jamie Osborne try wrapped up a convincing win.
And after the game, our match co-commentator Brent Pope joined John Duggan and paid tribute to the comeback of full-back Hugo Keenan.
Hugo Keenan scored that second Leinster try. He lived and enjoyed it, Brent, because he's had a frustrating time missing the Six Nations.
Look, Hugo Keenan, as I said to him, to me is like the Rolls-Royce of full-back play. He's good at everything he does. And I even thought last week when he missed that tackle, that crucial tackle that I think Thompson got the try from Edinburgh. You saw him slap the ground in disgust because he doesn't... missed many tackles, but he's so good in the air. So many of those 50-50 balls were won by Keenan or something like that. He scored a try to go along with his try last week, so he's covering the ground, he's doing everything right, and it's just another bonus to have him back for length.
What were the highlights of Leinster's recent match against Sale?
And speaking to Off the Ball's Cameron Hill, head coach Leo Cullen said that Sale's physicality made it a tough game for the boys in blue.
Listen, they're two very different types of teams, Edinburgh and Sale, so Sale and, listen, they're incredibly physical teams, so to work incredibly hard for it and that's the way it played out so um yeah when we start the game dan scores who tried to start um we we get some access into their 22 there's a couple of because obviously that shower came down beforehand so it's it's a little bit greasy so there was a couple of handling areas more around being on the ground so um and that's something to do with lifting the pressure and say i'll put on us as well around some of the contacts so We've heard their coach talk about their mentality, the industrial sort of physicality that they want to bring to their game.
And you definitely see that in very experienced halfbacks, particularly George Ford at 10 in terms of their kicking game. They're not playing huge by themselves. They want to play a very strong kicking territory game and keep turning. And you just need to make sure you're able to manage that and not get sucked into overplaying at different stages. Second half, listen,
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