Leavy shows why he is in seven heaven
IT HAS been a season littered with standout moments and man of the match awards, yet Dan Leavy stills finds himself unsure of his standing at Leinster.
Much of Leavy’s breakthrough has been a by-product of the injury problems that have dogged the Blues’ star flanker, Seán O’Brien, who again failed to come through his latest comeback attempt unscathed at the weekend.
Yesterday, Stuart Lancaster rated the Carlow man as ‘50-50’ for Saturday’s Champions Cup semi-final date with Scarlets, but in Leavy they have a fully capable replacement who many would argue is now the man in possession of the No 7 shirt.
The 23-year-old is not short of confidence, and explains that while he is happy to shift back across to openside — where he lined out for much of the early half of the campaign — to accommodate O’Brien, the Leinster coaching staff would be muting the impact of one of their most effective performers this season.
‘I think my strength is at seven,’ said Leavy.
‘I find it a little bit more difficult to play at six because I am away from the ball a lot longer, and I think my strength is in around contact and in around the ball.
‘I do definitely think I’m more at home playing seven, getting out and making the first tackle or hitting the first ruck, getting into the game as much as possible.
‘Seanie is such a high calibre player. We want him to play every week. There is always a lot of talk about back-row variations and who will move where, who will play where and whatever. But, you know, I will play wherever as long as the team can perform to its best and we can get through this round.’
If Leinster are to overcome this latest hurdle, they will need Leavy at his best. During the Christmas period scrum coach John Fogarty admitted that while the former St Michael’s man was producing plenty of big moments for the province, he was still guilty of drifting out of matches for periods.
It’s an area that Leavy has worked hard to address, evident in the quality of his performances during Ireland’s Grand Slam winning campaign, where he stepped in for the injured Josh van der Flier in the opening weekend defeat of France and established himself as one of Joe Schmidt’s key men.
He has carried that form back to the province, and delivered another relentless performance in the quarter-final defeat of Saracens, capped by a wonderful second-half try where he exchanged a neat one-two with close friend James Ryan before sprinting under the posts.
It was afternoon where Leavy collected another man of the match award, as well as a now customary black eye.
‘I think the modelling career is not going to kick off, so I’ll take two black eyes to get through this game [against Scarlets],’ he joked.
‘That’s just the way I’ve kind of always played. To some people it might look like it’s a bit dangerous but it’s just the way I’ve always been, particularly when I go for a ball. I think if you are second guessing yourself in the back row, especially as a seven going for the ball, you are going to hurt yourself. So you are either all in or you are out.’
The size of the task facing Leinster this weekend is not lost on him. While home advantage has generally been a benefit in European semi-finals — there is a 64 per cent success rate at this stage for the home team — Leinster have bucked that trend, winning only one of the four semi-final ties they have played at Lansdowne Road, a 2011 win against Toulouse.
Then there is the quality of the opposition. This Scarlets team have proved a tough nut to crack for Leinster, with the Welsh side beating the Blues at the RDS in last year’s Pro12 semi-finals.
Leavy admits that Leo Cullen’s men may have overlooked that game after the crushing disappointment of losing to Clermont in the Champions Cup, something which has them primed to exact revenge this time around.
‘I think Scarlets have shown their calibre and quality throughout the season, not just the Champions Cup but through the Pro14. They are littered with Welsh internationals and you throw in a Tadhg Beirne and a few others around the park and they are a serious handful.
‘They are going to come over to the Aviva confident as well. They have no fear here. They won the semi-final in the RDS last year and ultimately won the final against Munster with a really dominant display.
‘We do have a huge test ahead of us, but we’re looking forward to it.’
And in Leavy, they have a player primed for the big occasion.