SOMEBODY HAS TO be the guinea pig. Leinster head coach Leo Cullen is already finding the process of being the first Pro14 team through the breach and into a new hemisphere quite a bit testing.
The eastern province will make the long trip south for 16 September, week three of the new Championship which will pit them against the Kings in Port Elizabeth before heading to the altitude of Bloemfontein to meet the Cheetahs a week later.
Cullen’s side will fly out exactly six weeks after the tournament expansion was formally announced. So short-term planning has been a headache for anyone in the province juggling logistics and trying to ensure no man is left behind like Kevin McCallister amid the chaos of transit.
“Our party won’t be altogether,” says Cullen, ”we’ll have two docs at two different times. Players: getting back is tricky, we’ll have a couple of parties coming back, but most of them are on the same plane getting out.
“Staff wise, we’ll have a few guys going out on Monday, bulk of the party will travel on Tuesday for Wednesday, for the first game on Saturday. Some guys through London, some through Paris…”
That sort of Rubik’s cube travel planning would be trial enough, but there is more to the logistical considerations than just transporting players to South Africa. Cullen has yet to get a fully finalised itinerary complete with training locations for what will be a 10-day tour.
The late onset of the Pro14′s new long-distance stature is also not helped by the budgetary constraints passed down to travelling teams by organisers. Working from UCD, Cullen would be able to train with a full complement of players even on post-match days when there is always a need for a number of players to sit out sessions or stay off feet. Due south, their entire touring party of coaches, medics, analysts and players is limited to 40. With players filtering back to first-team duty and full fitness from international duty and injury on a staggered basis, that could mean Cullen will bring as few as 28 players for two matches against opponents who will view his team as a scalp needed to make their mark in their new surroundings.
You’d like to bring as significant a number as you can to be training out there. It’s definitely a spanner in the works, especially as the first team to be out there, us along with Zebre at the same time.”
“For a normal training week, we would like to have 15-against-15. That is what our normal weekly preparation would be.
“We train with big numbers. The way we manage the group over the course of the season is very different to what other teams would do.”
The tournament once known as the Celtic League prides itself on a certain level of agility and being able to move the parameters of the competition over the space of a summer, as they have done in recent months. However, there is still work to be done from organisers and the clubs involved to iron out the fine details that make all the cogs turn smoothly.
“The rules are being made up as we go along so it’s going to take a bit of time,” says Cullen.
“(Rules) from the competition, there’s rules around when guys can play… it’s expensive. This isn’t in six months’ time, this is a couple of weeks away now. It’s (happening in) round three and we start next week.”
That opening outing sees Leinster travel to Wales to face Bernard Jackman’s Dragons. Jamie Heaslip remains a tentative ‘touch and go’ for the start of the season, but the Kearney brothers, Jordi Murphy, Scott Fardy, Fergus McFadden and Isa Nacewa (who look primed to be the centre partnership to take Cullen through the early months of the season) are all on course to be involved for the start of the season.
Remaining fit through the South African trip will be key for Cullen as he hinted that introducing some of the bigger names who may have been scheduled for week four, is just not an option.
“You can do X amount of training but the reality is that nothing beats playing games for us.
“It’s a lot of planning and thought that goes into who comes back when, who they come back with. That’s complicated at the best of times, but throw in a trip to South Africa in round three and four…it’s not like we’re allowed to fly guys out, fly guys home, that’s not the way it’ll work. We’re being told that we’ll have our tour party, and then we’ve to do our best with that.”
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