\n<\/p>\n
Leinster shook off a lacklustre first half to comfortably beat Sale Sharks and book a home Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon.<\/b><\/p>\n
The four-time European champions struggled to a 7-3 lead at the break, thanks to Dan Sheehan’s converted ninth-minute try, but turned on the style in a one-sided second half.<\/p>\n
Tries from Hugo Keenan, Ryan Baird, Rieko Ioane, Tommy O’Brien and Jamie Osborne saw Leinster put distance between them and Sale, who scored their only try through Alex Wills with 10 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
Leinster will host Toulon, who edged out Glasgow Warriors, at Aviva Stadium on the weekend of 2 and 3 May.<\/p>\n
Sale coach Alex Sanderson had promised his side were not in Dublin “to make up the numbers” and – despite a poor season with just three wins in 12 games in the Prem – they posed Leinster problems before the break.<\/p>\n
The visitors were without injured England forwards Bevan Rodd and Luke Cowan-Dickie, while Nathan Jibulu is serving a six-week ban for biting.<\/p>\n
Leinster were disrupted when prop Alex Usanov limped off after only four minutes, but recovered enough to go ahead when hooker Sheehan went over under the posts.<\/p>\n
But Sharks held firm for the rest of the half, winning three penalty scrums and getting on the scoreboard through a George Ford penalty as the hosts failed to impose themselves in greasy conditions.<\/p>\n
But yellow cards shown to Dan du Preez and Si McIntyre either side of half-time handed Leinster an advantage that they seized, Keenan gliding in three minutes after the restart.<\/p>\n
Ford’s boot kept Sale in it at 12-6, but Baird and Ioane crossed close to the corner flag within three minutes of each other, Ioane’s try having started from Byrne’s superb claim of a high ball.<\/p>\n
The Leinster fly-half then laid on the fifth try, sending through a chip kick over the top ahead that O’Brien landed on just over the tryline.<\/p>\n
Sale showed some ambition with game all but gone, Wills running to the corner after a loose ball bounced up kindly and was moved wide to the substitute.<\/p>\n
But Leinster had the last word, man of the match Sheehan rampaging deep into the Sale half before feeding Osborne for the hosts’ sixth try with the last action of the match.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leinster shook off a lacklustre first half to comfortably beat Sale Sharks and book a home Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon. The four-time European champions struggled to a 7-3 lead at the break, thanks to Dan Sheehan’s converted ninth-minute try, but turned on the style in a one-sided second half. Tries from Hugo Keenan, Ryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}