Murray Kinsella reports from Kingspan Stadium
LEO CULLEN WAS critical of his Leinster team as they missed out on top spot in the Guinness Pro12 with a 17-13 defeat to Ulster on the final day of the regular season.
The loss means Leinster will host Scarlets at the RDS in on 19 May, rather than the fourth-placed Ospreys, and Cullen was highly dissatisfied with his men’s display on an emotional occasion at the Kingspan Stadium.
The eastern province had already secured a home semi-final before this weekend, but Cullen said their dip in intensity was unacceptable.
“Knowing you’re in a semi-final, I definitely think it has affected the mentality of the players,” said Cullen. “We were off today.
“That was disappointing because there’s definitely a feeling in that dressing room that we didn’t give a full account of ourselves. But credit to Ulster, they were good and they bullied us at times in the contact area.
“Guys need to have a good look at themselves and see how we can improve moving forward. Scarlets are a really physical team as well.”
Number eight Jack Conan echoed his head coach’s sentiments, stating that Leinster would not accept their underperformance simply because this game had been a ‘dead rubber’.
With Ruan Pienaar, Roger Wilson, Ricky Lutton, Neil Doak and Allen Clarke saying their goodbyes to the Ulster crowd, Les Kiss’ men showed the greater motivation.
“They were up for the occasion on a big day,” said Conan. “They dealt with the emotions better than we did. Fair play to those lads, they’ve had great careers and it’s nice for them to finish on a high, but we’re pretty gutted.
“We can’t let our motivation waver game to game, there’s no excuse. Playing at the top level, you can’t be up for one game and not be up for the next. To come out today and not be motivated is no excuse. We just weren’t where we needed to be and Ulster were better on the day.
“Personally, it was a poor performance from me and I know the rest of the lads aren’t overly happy with how they went either. We’ll be better for this and it’ll fuel the fire in two weeks’ time when the Scarlets come to the RDS.”
With no game next weekend, Leinster will take a break from training on Monday and Tuesday before returning to their headquarters in UCD on Wednesday to begin building towards that clash with the Scarlets.
“It’s important that we get a little bit of time away, for guys to refresh mentally,” said Cullen. “We’d love to be playing in a [Champions Cup] final next week but we need to use that time smartly, there’s no point in training for the sake of training.”
The Scarlets have been in fine form in the second part of this season, with ex-Leinster lock Tadhg Beirne playing an important role in their improvement.
Cullen is comforted by home advantage, but knows Leinster will need to be much, much better than they were today in Belfast.
“The Scarlets got off to a poor start and lost their first three games but since then they’ve been on a brilliant run,” said Cullen.
“They’ve a good solid set-piece and they’re hard over the ball at the breakdown, James Davies and Will Boyde in particular, John Barclay as well. They have a lot of pace in their team and Rhys Patchell has gone well, so they’re a quality outfit.”
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