Since arriving last September, Kane Douglas says he has settled in to life at the province and is feeling at home at Leinster.
Douglas made his debut in the home win over Cardiff Blues at the end of September and has featured in every game since in the Champions Cup and Guinness PRO12.
This weekend Leinster travel to face Cardiff in Arms Park, and speaking to the media ahead of the game Douglas said how he has settled in to his new home since that first game over three months ago.
“There’s a bit of adjustment: a different game plan, a different style and gelling with the boys. I feel pretty settled and feel at home. It’s been good off the field as well. All the fans are pretty good and people in Dublin are really nice.”
Making the move to Leinster meant adjusting to a different style of play in the northern hemisphere. The thing Douglas says that has stood out the most in PRO12 and Champions Cup games compared to Super Rugby is the emphasis on the set piece.
“We spend more time during the week (on set pieces), so more line-outs and mauls and scrums. I was telling Matty (O’Connor) the first few weeks when I got here I was feeling pretty tired – I couldn’t get in to games. I think that was just using more energy in those set pieces. You probably need to be fitter over here if you’re a forward because you’ve got to work harder in the set piece and still get around and try do everything you want to do around the field.
“It’s my first time I’ve changed clubs – I’ve been at the Waratahs since I was 17. You’ve always got to adjust to new calls and new people around you.”
Douglas featured for the final 20 minutes of last Saturday’s win over Ulster, coming on as a replacement for Mike McCarthy. Leinster were 24-11 winners on the day with tries from Ian Madigan and Jack Conan. Despite the positive result Douglas says the squad are still looking to improve.
“I think the forwards went pretty well; scrums and line-outs were pretty good. There’s always things to improve on – we went through in our forwards meeting this morning. The back row went very well with them young boys – Jack Conan especially killed it, and Josh van der Flier didn’t think he was going to play and ended up playing most of the game.
“We did some good things out there that we can refer back to for weeks ahead. I think we know there’s still a lot of things to improve on but there were some good things out there that we need to keep doing each week.”
Leinster face Castres in a crucial Champions Cup game in the RDS Arena on 17th January (KO 5.30pm). Click here to get your tickets for the game.
