Brian O’Driscoll was at his mesmeric best as Leinster crushed Northampton Saints 40-7 at Franklin’s Gardens in round 3 of the Heineken Cup. Leinster scored six tries, including this one that featured an audacious through the legs flick from O’Driscoll.
The veteran centre rolled back the years as he set up a few tries and scored one himself. He was awarded Man of the Match, but praised his side, and specifically hat-trick hero Luke Fitzgerald.
“I’ve got the man-of-the-match but I find that amusing when I saw performances like Luke Fitzgerald’s today,” said O’Driscoll post match. “I thought he was outstanding. Besides the tries, I thought his energy was fantastic. There were lots of those sort of performances.”
Northampton Saints director of rugby Jim Mallinger said his team’s showing was embarrassing.
“We were embarrassed out there and came second best. We made a terrible start and that didn’t improve. Sometimes you make bad starts and have a bad 5-10 minutes, but you at least expect to come back fighting. But we were completely outclassed.
“I feel embarrassed because we’ve let the fans down. We have some great fans here. They love their European rugby. It’s a great competition for us but we’ve messed up. We were bad.”
O’Driscoll meanwhile said he enjoyed his time out there, even if he was subbed before full time.
“I had fun today. I have yet to finish 80 minutes this season – they’re looking after the old guy! But I’m enjoying it and it’s only my second game in blue this year.
“I love playing for this team. We’ve managed to build a relatively good history in recent years and now it’s about trying to build on that again,” he added.
The two sides will meet for the round 4 return fixture in Dublin this coming weekend.
Sign In