Roound-Up: It was a walk in the park for Leinster, admits Lineen
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Your support makes all the difference.Leinster head coach Joe Schmidt expressed his relief after his Heineken Cup holders rose to the top of Pool Three following a bonus-point 38-13 victory over Glasgow yesterday.
Rob Kearney touched down, Eoin O'Malley scored twice and Gordon D'Arcy also crossed the line to help Leinster take a 31-6 half-time lead, before Isaac Boss scored a late try. "You don't tend to get anything easy with Glasgow, but it was certainly a relief to get through the way we did," Schmidt reflected.
"The first 40 minutes was probably the best 40 we have put together. We built the momentum really well and stayed really focused on the job in hand."
Defeat for Glasgow ended their five-match winning streak and head coach Sean Lineen conceded his side deserved to lose. "We got well and truly spanked, didn't we?" Lineen said. "In the first half there was only one team in it. Leinster won the contact battle hands down, both in attack and in defence. It was a walk in the park in that first half and the game was over."
After his side's 26-21 defeat of Bath in their pool opener, Lineen hoped to build upon that performance against Leinster but they lacked the intensity of the hosts. "Leinster were direct, very abrasive," Lineen added. "You look at four or five instances where they stripped the ball from us, like candy from a baby. It was men against boys at times."
Elsewhere, Saracens' director of rugby, Mark McCall, was pleased to come away with a point after his side fell to 15-10 defeat to Biarritz in Pool Five on Saturday, conceding tries to Imanol Harinordoquy and Taku Ngwenya.
"With a vocal crowd behind their team, it is easy to fold but we didn't and we could have scored more tries," said McCall, whose side still top Pool Five after accumulating maximum points in the opening round of games.
"We showed a lot of character and skill in that final quarter to come away with the try," added McCall, after fly-half Alex Goode touched down in the 80th minute for Saracens. "The bonus point could be important at the end of the pool stages."
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