Leinster showed on Saturday night why they're the standard bearers of URC rugby, with an emphatic win away in Thomond Park.
You could argue that Leinster are superior to Munster in many areas at the moment, but they went to Limerick without two international hookers and two international loosehead props in the starting XV, two international second rows were unavailable, Johnny Sexton was rested, Tadhg Furlong was on the bench, and they still won the game comfortably.
What caught my eye throughout the match was the variation in Leinster’s attacking game and how they use differing passes to gain an advantage depending on what they’re trying to do.
With defences narrowing up and putting the attack under more pressure in close these days, many teams are attempting to exploit them out wide with long passes and passes over the top of the onrushing, closing winger.
However, Leinster’s use of short and accurate passes is what does a lot of the damage, in what you could term as 'power play’ moments within the game.
Every phase is like a mini battle at the gain line and Leinster’s players are quite comfortable looking at the tackle line and making decisions in small areas.
Jamison Gibson-Park starts this from the ruck and creates a tempo by challenging the inside defenders and then someone runs a clever line into the biggest gap they can find in the defensive line.
However, these are rarely one-out passes.
There was a moment where Gibson-Park hit Robbie Henshaw just around the ruck and he surveyed his options before passing back inside to his scrum-half who attacked the defensive line again.
In the same passage of play, Leinster walked Munster backwards about 30 metres without the hosts missing a tackle.
It brought Leinster from an
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