On a day when the other main contenders Munster had to dig deep to survive against lowly Benetton, it was champions Leinster who made the big statement as they overtook Ulster to reclaim the lead in Conference A of the Guinness PRO14.
Leinster went to Wales to play against Scarlets at Parc Y Scarlets needing to win to overtake their fellow Irish rivals, who they trailed by one log point but with a game in hand going into Saturday night's doubleheader of fixtures that had been rescheduled by coronavirus postponements. They also travelled knowing that their last two visits to the venue haven’t been convincing ones.
They lost on their last visit to the Llanelli venue in 2018 and were held to a draw in the game before that. Leinster were also playing with 17 frontline players who are part of the Ireland Six Nations squad.
However, coach Leo Cullen’s team made nonsense of any suggestion it might be a close game and effectively made a double statement by topping the 50 mark and winning easily. The first part of that double statement was that they are definitely now red-hot favourites to retain their title, and the second part was what it said about their depth. The impression created a few weeks back when they lost to Connacht that the Covid-19 pandemic might have eaten at their pool of back-up players was comprehensively blown away by their impressive, dominant performance.
They started like they had a train to catch, wrapping up the four-try bonus point before the break, with their command of the contest so comprehensive by the time the halfway point was reached that they could afford to let Tadhq Furlong, their international tighthead prop returning from nearly a year away with injury, end his evening then.
Furlong will have headed for the Ireland training camp after completing his mission of getting some game time to prove his fitness in a confident mood, and his team will also be in a confident mood after putting seven tries past the well-beaten Scarlets.
Munster will be in less confident mood because they had to rely on a last-gasp drop-goal from flyhalf JJ Hanrahan to get them home against Benetton in Treviso. Benetton had yet to win in nine starts this season and was given little chance of upsetting Johan van Graan’s team, who are comfortably sitting at the summit of Conference B.
When Benetton scored in the last 10 minutes to go 16-15 up it looked like Munster might be destined for a morale-destroying second close defeat in a row. They lost to Leinster in their previous game. However, as the game went into injury time the visitors had the field position to set up Hanrahan for the winning kick that keeps them well out of sight of the chasing pack in their conference.
Weekend Guinness PRO14 results (rescheduled fixtures)
Benetton 16-18 Munster
Scarlets 25-52 Leinster