O’Connor hails Leinster players

Editor

Leinster boss Matt O’Connor believes his side’s win over Zebre has helped them make up for an indifferent start to the season.

Leinster boss Matt O’Connor believes his side’s 20-3 win over Zebre in Parma on Saturday has helped them make up for an indifferent start to the season.

The Irish province suffered three defeats before the trip to Zebre but bounced back in style with Ian Madigan leadingthe way with a 13-point haul via a try a conversion and a penalty.

That result has moved Leinster in to sixth position on the table and although O’Connor was full of praise for Madigan, he believs his entire squad’s performance was a good sign ahead of their campaign in the European Champions Cup.

“He is an unbelievably talented footballer and he will beat defenders for fun,” O’Connor told the Irish Independent.

“hey were starting to get tired and it was a timely result for us.

“I think they were struggling to hold on and we started to break them down a little bit at the back end of the first half but just didn’t get the result on the scoreboard.

“We certainly had enough opportunities down there and if we were good enough we probably would have got another couple of tries and that would have been a fitting result for us off the back of a tough week.

“We let ourselves down with a couple of results that were pretty tight games to be fair. I think it could have gone either way, it was a good wake-up call for us last week.

“To build into Europe off the back of this win after the Munster defeat will hopefully be good for us.”