Glasgow will sense opportunity against a Leinster team in need of a lift

The 42

2 days ago

LEINSTER NEED A trophy, but Saturday's quarter-final defeat of Scarlets suggested a URC title might not capture as many imaginations as the province would like.
A turnout of less than 13,000 made for a strange occasion at Aviva Stadium. While not a small number, the crowd was utterly lost in a 51,000+ capacity stadium. There are understandable reasons why the fixture didn't attract a larger audience: falling on a bank holiday weekend, where DART services were closed between Connolly and Dun Laoghaire, against a team Leinster were widely expected to beat with some ease and in doing so, secure another home game seven days later.
Yet it's not all logistics. Leinster's devastating Champions Cup loss to Northampton Saints clearly sucked much of the enthusiasm out of the province's season. The URC is a very clear and distinct second prize. The province's players have previously made clear that it's essentially all or nothing in terms of winning Europe. Even if Leinster do win the URC in the coming weeks, the season will be remembered for another failure at Champions Cup level.
That's the cold, harsh reality when you're a team with such lofty ambitions.
Less than 13,00 turned out for Leinster's URC quarter-final. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
Post-game on Saturday, Leo Cullen repeatedly called for the supporters to turn out when defending URC champions Glasgow Warriors come to Dublin on Saturday [KO 2.45pm]. While stressing he was not disappointed with the attendance for Scarlets and detailing reasons why that might have been the case, he also underlined the lift a larger crowd can give to his players – players who perhaps need that lift given the lingering Champions Cup pain. This was not the look of a group energised by the chance to end their season with a URC medal.
'Please turn out in force,' Cullen said. 'We would love to see you here in June and get excited about cheering on the team and all the rest, because the players feed off that energy. Like, the players are human beings and they want to do well, they want to feel that support behind them.'
All that said, Cullen refused to use the smaller crowd as a contributing factor in his team's scrappy, disjointed display.
'No, no, no, no. I don't want to use that at all,' he continued.
We played here in front of empty stadiums in Covid and I would much rather have what we had there today. In no way am I giving out here, in no way.
'There is a reality, a shift. It is outside the norm and we all have our habitual bits to the makeup of our calendar, certain things we do at certain times of the year. We just need to make it more in the public consciousness among people that watch rugby. We'll just keep beating the drum. We are asking supporters to come out here again next Saturday. It is short. We had a two-week lead-in and this is one week so it is more challenging again.'
In reality, the gate return might be the least of his worries. If Leinster are similarly off-colour against Glasgow the province might well be staring another home semi-final defeat in the face. Cullen's men held 65% possession and 70% territory against Scarlets but still struggled to put the game to bed more efficiently.
Cullen was asked if he feels his players can peak over the next two weekends. His answer led him back to yet more reflections on what went wrong against the Saints.
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'The thing is, you talk about a season and you have players that have to go through the course of it. The peaking bit is a challenge and that's for us to get our preparation right this week, trying to get them peaking during Six Nations and on Champions Cup weekends.
'It's unusual having seven playoff games in a season. We're not going to get seven this year but you have to have some level of a plan for that. We had Six Nations, then three Champions Cup games, two great and one poor.
'Was that Northampton or us? Were they excellent or was that us? We had a chance at the end. Different day, different decisions, different outcomes and you go on to another game. Again, it's turn the page.
Jack Conan makes a break. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
'We had a chance to refresh last week when we were off and managing that can be a bit of a challenge as we chopped and changed the team a bit for Zebre and Glasgow. There's not much at stake in those games, that's the reality and that can potentially lure you into bad habits.
'With play-off rugby, its cagey, play the conditions and the opposition and find a way to win. It doesn't matter. You deal with the variables on the day: big crowd, small crowd. It forces Scarlets to change the way they are playing if we are two or three scores in front in the second-half, but unfortunately it's not to be. That's the way the game goes and you find a way to navigate through that and I'm pleased the way the lads did that.'
Leinster have already faced Glasgow twice this season, both at the Aviva. In April, a painfully one-sided Champions Cup quarter-final saw the province thump an injury-hit Glasgow 52-0. More recently Leinster edged a URC meeting 13-5.
Yet the Warriors will see this as a real opportunity against a Leinster side still licking the wounds of that Northampton loss.
'We've come up against them in a Champions Cup game and they looked like they were running on fumes that week,' Cullen said.
'You watch them in the warm-up then when there's not a huge amount at stake (in the URC game) and you can see they are a very focused team.
'You could see they were very physical. We had some chances, so did they, they had a lot of possession in the first-half and they were probably disappointed not to capitalise. Then we go down the other end and go 7-0 in front, maybe could have scored another before half-time.
'It was just a cagey sort of game. Will it be a cagey game again, I don't know. It's a knock-out game so what matters is just getting through. People tend not to remember the detail as in what actually happens in these games. We just need to go through.'
That need is increasingly evident as the weeks roll by.