Toner makes big impact at Wembley
More than 24 hours after his first appearance at Wembley, Leinster rugby player Devin Toner was feeling the effects of a bruising encounter in the home of English soccer. Toner, along with fellow Meath man Shane Horgan, was part of the Leinster team that carved out a rousing 25-23 win over Saracens in the Heineken Cup at the famous stadium on Saturday. Earlier the same day Denis Hurley was involved in Munster’s impressive 45-18 win over Toulon at Thomond Park. The Kells man lined out on the wing and made a crunching tackle on Jean-Philippe Genevois which was one of the highlights of the day. However, Leinster’s win over a fancied Saracens side without Brian O’Driscoll was an even bigger scalp and by Sunday evening when he was back in Ireland Toner could reflect on what could turn out to be a very significant win in Leinster’s quest to secure a quarter-final place. The Moynalvey man said he felt pretty “battered” after the game which Leinster led for long spells surviving a late surge by Saracens to win by the narrow margin. “Playing at Wembley was brilliant, it’s just another top class stadium, it’s just like Aviva, it’s was just brilliant to play in a place like Wembley,” he told the Meath Chronicle this week. At the end of last season I broke my ankle and that was the first injury I ever got, then I sustained another injury in a pre-season game so I missed the first three games.” Saturday’s win enveloped a memorable few weeks for Toner as he recovered from a lengthy spell on the treatment table. He returned for the defeat by Edinburgh in the Magners League and held his place for the win over Munster at the Aviva Stadium in the same competition. His impressive performance against Ronan O’Gara & Co helped him nail down a starting place on the team for the Heineken Cup win over Racing Metro at the RDS a few weeks ago. On Saturday, Toner gained some valuable experience as he competed against the likes of England’s Steve Borthwick for supremacy in the line-outs. The Leinster throw-ins generally went as planned although Toner was irritated by one steal Saracens executed. “That was pretty annoying, I called the line-out and they stole it so that was annoying alright.” While Leinster were happy with their win Toner says there are areas they need to improve. “The amount of penalties we gave away was unacceptable and that is something we really have to work on, we could have beaten them by a lot more, we let them into the game by giving away stupid penalties. You can’t let a team back into it like that,” he added. Leinster’s form in the Magners League hasn’t been good and Toner and his colleagues will be seeking to change that when they take on Connacht at the weekend. He attributes Leinster’s turnaround in form to a “greater physicality.” They saw the fruits of their new approach on Saturday and Toner, Jonathan Sexton, Horgan and Jamie Heaslip and their colleagues will be hoping there’s more to come. Toner’s week got even better on Tuesday morning when he was named in the Irish squad for the upcoming November international matches.