Leo Cullen: 'It's knockout rugby, what matters is getting through'

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

URC: Leinster 33 Scarlets 21
Alone they stand of Ireland's four provinces, again, and yet this URC quarter-final defeat of an honest but limited Scarlets side only heightened the suspicion that something is just not clicking for Leinster this season.
Leo Cullen was happy to have 'won ugly' by the end of a game that they won by four tries to three and a dozen points against a side that played 20 second-half minutes with 14 men, but this won't do again. Not nearly.
Keep playing like this and either Glasgow Warriors or one of the two South African sides in the other semi-final will do for them before this playoff run is out and it will be a fourth year on the trot without a trophy to decorate their efforts.
Leinster had 65% possession and 70% territory on Saturday and they still couldn't shake off their Welsh opponents at any stage – this despite a whirlwind start that had them 12-0 to the good after just ten minutes.
The perception abroad is that the men in blue are gettable. Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel inferred as much afterwards when he spoke about how they felt a screw could be turned if they just hung in there long enough.
Mental concerns may well be feeding into the mechanics. The much-vaunted Jacques Nienaber blitz defence was shredded by Northampton Saints in that Champions Cup semi-final and Scarlets highlighted areas of concern again here.
Leinster had to make only one-third as many tackles as Scarlets but they succeeded with only 65% of them. The evidence was apparent to the naked eye in the ease with which space and two scores were found for the first and third Scarlets tries.
The theory goes that Leinster's dominance through the regular season might be working against them when push comes to shove and they are untested in terms of arm wrestles and jeopardy come the knockout stages.
Cullen seems to buy into that. He picked out their last two league ties, against Zebre and Glasgow, when they had little or nothing to play for and compared it to the 'cup rugby' that Scarlets had been playing long before this quarter-final.
'Sometimes that creates a little bit of bad habits when you play games like that,' he said.
Whatever about the vibes inside the dressing-room and on the field, the atmosphere at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday spoke for the sense of drift that has enveloped the province with less than 13,000 punters paying in.
The loss to the Saints has clearly fed into that, so did the Bank Holiday. Cullen also posited how supporters still need to get their heads, and their calendars, around a season that now stretches so far into June.
Added into this is the fact that, regardless of concerns over the team's efforts, the expectation was that they would breeze past the Scarlets, that there would be another, bigger, day to tempt people to open their wallets.
Cullen is mindful of all that, too, but he understands the need to rally the troops. 'It shouldn't be a drudge,' he said in trying to generate excitement for the semi-final to come and highlighting the danger posed by Glasgow.
That said, he is not using a subdued crowd as reason for any struggles.
'No, no, no no. I don't want to use that at all. We played here in front of empty stadiums in Covid and I would much rather have what we had there [on Saturday]. In no way am I giving out here, in no way… '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.'
Glasgow are, lest we forget, reigning URC champions and they did it by beating Munster in Limerick in the last four and then overcoming the Bulls in Pretoria. Leinster beat them 52-0 in the last eight of Europe but only 13-5 in the URC earlier this month.
The Irish province is still capable of routing an opponent, but liberal seeds of doubt have been sown deep into their psyche in recent weeks and if that Scarlets team can push them so close then Glasgow, Bulls and Sharks will be sniffing blood.
'It's a knockout game so what matters is just getting through,' said Cullen. 'People tend not to remember the detail as in what actually happens in these games. We just need to go through.'
Leinster: H Keenan; J O'Brien, J Osborne, J Barrett, J Lowe; S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; A Porter, R Kelleher, T Clarkson; J McCarthy, J Ryan; R Baird, J van der Flier, J Conan.
Replacements: S Penny for van der Flier (29); D Sheehan for Kelleher and RG Snyman for Ryan (both 46); R Slimani for Clarkson (58); L McGrath for Gibson-Park and J Boyle for Porter (both 66); M Deegan for Conan (68) and Snyman (74); C Frawley for Keenan (75).
Scarlets: B Murray; T Rogers, J Roberts, J Williams, E Mee; S Costelow, A Hughes; A Hepburn, R Elias, H Thomas; A Craig, S Lousi; V Fifita, J Macleod, T Plumtree.
Replacements: M van der Merwe for Elias (51); K Mathias for Craig (58); I Lloyd for Costelow (59); M Page for Rogers and S Wainwright for Thomas (both 65); J Taylor for Hepburn (67); D Davis for Macleod and E Jones for Hughes (both 75).
Referee: H Davidson (SRU).