All on the line for Leinster as Leo Cullen's side seek first trophy in four years

Extra.ie​

13 hours ago

Leo Cullen has pretty much seen it all at this stage. But the Leinster head coach couldn't help but marvel at how this competition has evolved.
Cullen was part of a Leinster side which won the inaugural Celtic League in 2001, beating Munster in a thriller at the old Lansdowne Road.
Back then, the competition had Welsh sides like Bridgend, Pontypridd, Ebbw Vale and Caerphilly providing the opposition. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
The league would expand its borders and go through various rebrands from the Magners League to the RaboDirect Pro12 (yes, you read that correctly) to the Guinness Pro14.
Teams such as the Borders, Celtic Warriors, Aironi, the Southern Kings and Cheetahs came and went.
For a long time, the league went a bit stale and when Leinster sealed their fourth consecutive title (in third gear, really) in 2021, it was clear that something needed to change.
Neither Leinster nor the tournament organises were satisfied with the standard of the competition.
The tournament was an easy target for a long time and there were no shortage of naysayers, this writer included, when it was announced that the Bulls, Sharks, Stormers and Lions were coming on board to join the newly-branded URC four years ago.
How was a cross-hemisphere league going to work? In fairness, the URC has been a roaring success. The South African teams and their fanbases have bought into it and, as Leinster have discovered in recent seasons, the URC is a tough title to win.
As Cullen observed recently, if someone had told you that Leinster and the Bulls would be contesting a league final at Croke Park a few years back, it would have been met with a healthy dose of scepticism.
GAA headquarters is the setting for Leinster's last stand this season. And it feels like a potentially era-defining game for this playing group and the under-fire coaching team. Pic: Piaras í' Mídheach/Sportsfile
Victory against a talented and powerful Bulls team this evening will dampen down a lot of the negative noises around this operation of late. Leinster are well used to criticism at this stage. When they're winning, they're branded a superclub with too much resources and favouritism from the IRFU.
When they lose, they're chokers who don't have the mental fortitude to see tight knockout games home.
They'll be pilloried for going four seasons without a trophy if they slip up today. If they win, they won't get too much kudos outside of their inner sanctum either. This is mighty Leinster after all. They should be winning a league they regularly top – with plenty to spare – season on season.
Internally, they know what's at stake. Landing a URC won't heal the Champions Cup wounds but it can accelerate the healing process and banish some demons when it comes to winning titles. Win today and the Leinster squad will depart for the summer break with a spring in their step. A dozen personnel – and potentially a few more – will be heading away on Lions duty. Another crew will be getting some exposure on the Ireland development tour.
They can bring those good vibes back into Leinster camp ahead of the next campaign and with an All Blacks superstar like Rieko Ioane on the way, Leinster can plot their next European tilt with some fresh optimism.
Defeat today, however, will only amplify the feeling that Cullen and his current coaching team have taken this squad as far as they can.
Cullen's job is not on the line today. It shouldn't be. For all the well-documented knockout woe, the former Leinster second row has built the province into a European force.
The club's power brokers and the IRFU wouldn't be so reactive and short-sighted either.
It's worth remembering where Leinster were when Cullen was appointed head coach almost a decade ago. He'd been thrown in at the deep end rather prematurely after Matt O'Connor had been handed his P45. Succeeding Joe Schmidt was never going to be easy, but the Aussie never looked like a good fit from the early days.
So, Cullen got the call. The province were at a low ebb, finishing bottom of their Champions Cup pool during a grim 2016/17 campaign, culminating in a 50-point hammering at the hands of Wasps in Coventry.
Cullen never panicked. He backed his academy. Within 12 months, a youthful Leinster were winning the tournament. That 2018 triumph in Bilbao has been Cullen's sole triumph in Europe and the chase for that fifth star has become an obsession. Yes, Leinster have fallen at plenty of hurdles in the meantime but they have continually been banging on that Champions Cup-shaped door every year.
Cullen has a lot of credit in the bank, with the IRFU, his own employers and his players.
Still, there may be some awkward conversations in the off season if Leinster fail in yet another final.
And this won't be easy. The Bulls are contesting their third final in four years and they are hungry to land a maiden URC.
For head coach Jake White and this group, there is no sense of this trophy being something of a late season, consolation prize.
White, who has serious pedigree as a coach when it comes to knockout rugby, said without hesitation this week that winning the URC would be up there with the Super Rugby triumphs in 2007, 2009 and 2010 when the likes of Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and Fourie du Preez were lording it in the southern hemisphere.
'It would be exactly the same,' he declared earlier this week. 'In South Africa, winning is what every franchise wants to do and I'm not talking from a standard point of view.'People have had this debate about whether southern hemisphere and Super Rugby are anything like URC rugby. 'I just think the achievement of winning something when you've spent as many weeks as any team has in preparing for a game like this becomes as important as any other competition.' The visitors are motivated. White will have a smart tactical plan. The Bulls have a monstrous scrum, spearheaded by giant tighthead Wilco Louw. They have the capacity to make this Grand Final a real dogfight. Leinster, despite missing some serious Ireland personnel, still have the talent and depth to get the job done. Cullen and his coaching team have been tactically outmanoeuvred too many times in big games. White has managed it twice in URC semi-finals. Ronan O'Gara, Ugo Mola, Phil Dowson and Graham Rowntree have done the same, either in European knockout games or the business end of this competition.
Cullen and his backroom team need a win. The players – a so-called golden generation – desperately need to end this title drought. Ditto the coaching team. There is much more than just a trophy on the line today.