Leinster’s young guns all fired up
LEINSTER out- half Cathal Marsh has warned their PRO12 opponents that the province are better equipped to cope without their Ireland internationals than they were during the World Cup.
Leo Cullen’s young players impressed in the competition when international duty robbed them of a number of key players earlier in the season, and Marsh believes the exposure they’ve since had made them even stronger.
‘I think we are probably a bit more confident now, a bit more assertive,’ Marsh said. ‘I wouldn’t have played a lot of games at all before the World Cup so you might be a bit tentative with the older boys, but at this stage after playing the last while with the lads, you are eminently more assertive. Especially as an out-half you tend to boss the lads about a bit more, that’s the way you have to be.’
Of course, for the majority of the season Marsh is tasked with vying for a position with one of the most assertive out- halves around, Johnny Sexton. Still, while he tries to learn from Sexton, he sees some differences in their approaches.
‘I guess we are all different, I would be a bit more chilled than Johnny. You have to be (assertive), you need to be able to boss people around, get them in the right position. If they are not, if people are in the wrong positions in a pod or a shape on a Tuesday, they are going to be in the wrong place on a Saturday. I think you do have to be assertive but everyone is different.’
So far this season, Marsh has racked up over 500 minutes in nine Leinster appearances. Next season, with no Ian Madigan, there is likely to be even more opportunities available to the 24-year-old.
‘I can only focus on myself. I think all of the young boys, just any time you’re in a squad, you just want to impress as much as you can.
‘I’ve always been pretty confident in my ability. I would have played all the age grades coming through school. I would have always been confident in my ability.
‘Not playing for a couple of years obviously was a sort of a dent in the confidence, but even throughout those years, personally, I always felt that I was good enough to play at this level.’
Tomorrow, Leinster travel to face Cardiff Blues in the PRO12. In anticipation of playing on the artificial surface at Cardiff Arms Park, Leinster have been training on their own plastic pitch in Donnybrook. Marsh believes that the Cardiff pitch will suit a Leinster team that has played plenty of British & Irish Cup games in Donnybrook, and head coach Leo Cullen claims that players will only get more comfortable on those surfaces over the coming years.
‘The home teams generally perform pretty well, it is a slight advantage,’ Cullen said.
‘The familiarity with playing on it, a lot of our guys playing B&I would have played on the Donnybrook pitch. A lot of our players are reasonably comfortable playing there, especially the younger guys more so. Guys who are coming through schools now are going to get pretty comfortable playing on it in the future.
‘But Cardiff, they adapted slight tweaks to the way they play their game. They try to play with good tempo, even i n their own half because it can be a little bit easier to hold onto possession for long phases. It’s hard to win the ball back because the way the tackle unfolds slightly differently.’