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Leinster dominate Dragons as Cian Healy breaks record

By PA
Cian Healy of Leinster after the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Dragons at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. (Photo By David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Replacement Joe McCarthy’s 64th-minute try sealed the bonus point for Leinster in a pedestrian 34-6 BKT United Rugby Championship win over the Dragons.

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Playing at the Aviva Stadium with the RDS under redevelopment, Leo Cullen’s men celebrated Cian Healy setting a new record as Leinster’s most-capped player.

A subdued first half ended with Leinster leading 10-6 thanks to unconverted tries from captain Jack Conan (17 minutes) and Ross Byrne (37). Lloyd Evans landed two penalties.

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Conan scored during Chris Coleman’s sin-binning, and player of the match Max Deegan struck six minutes into the second half. McCarthy, Jordan Larmour and Aitzol King made it a 29-point margin in the end.

Veteran prop Healy’s 281st appearance saw him overhaul Devin Toner, but Dragons did not read the script. It took Jimmy O’Brien’s ankle tap to prevent Ewan Rosser from racing over early on.

Fixture
United Rugby Championship
Leinster
34 - 6
Full-time
Dragons RFC
All Stats and Data

However, Coleman made head contact with Thomas Clarkson in the 16th minute following Ben Carter’s initial tackle.

Conan duly crashed over to take advantage of the yellow card. Byrne, who swung a pass wide in the build-up, missed the difficult conversion.

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Two obstruction calls spoiled Leinster mauls, and Evans rewarded Brodie Coghlan’s breakdown work with a 25th-minute penalty.

Approaching the break, Byrne nipped inside Coghlan’s tackle to reach out for the line, but Evans’ last-minute penalty left just four points in it.

Leinster upped the physicality on the restart, aided by a Conan turnover. Deegan muscled over from close range, giving Byrne a straightforward conversion for 17-6.

The doughty Dragons failed to capitalise on an overlap when Harry Wilson elected to kick, and their challenge gradually petered out.

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Conan’s lineout transfer had McCarthy powering over in the left corner, and Larmour and replacement King, with his first senior score from a long Harry Byrne pass, took the hosts’ try haul to six.

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M
MO 1 hour ago
Will Jordan opens up on how All Blacks have changed under Scott Robertson

Razor does have a conundrum - Will Jordan scores tries! The majority of his AB career has been wing, but his favoured position is Full Back. Is Will Jordan an exceptional fullback? The answer is probably NO. He's not especially good under the high ball. He's not especially good kicking out of defense. And he's not an especially good tackler or last defender. But he does score tries!


However, I believe Razor is being myopic in his team selections and game plan. This year was the year to try different things. Everyone would accept losses this year if he was really trying different combos


But in reality he's not... I think Ioane is an amazing winger. He's a good defender at center but he creates nothing at center because for 3 years now his passing and distrubution skills have remained poor. But Razor persists and doesn't give Proctor a chance. The problem is compounded for our centers because Jordie is not a good distributor either - so in the end the ball rarely gets to the wing unless DMAC does a cross field kick. Jordie and/or Reiko bashing the ball up is just so damn predictable.


Scooter is a good player, but after 9 games his leadership must be under question. Furthermore in the 7 games he has captained, I believe the leadership burden has affected his game.


Is Scooter a world class 4 - absolutley not. But unlike Rassie who converted PSDT to the blindside role - Razor has not contemplated doing the same with Scooter.

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