IN THE SMILING aftermath of Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final win over Scarlets, a question of selection was directed at Leo Cullen.
Would this crop of front-line players see any game-time in the three weeks before the Champions Cup final in Bilbao?
Sitting beside Cullen, Jonathan Sexton looked keen to answer, leaning into an exaggerated nod of the head that screamed: put me in, coach!
He didn’t get his wish, and the much-changed side sent to Connacht on Saturday was well and truly torn apart, leaving a smorgasbord of food for thought in front of Leinster’s fringe talent before they compete for a role in either the European Cup final or the Pro14 knockouts beyond.
“It was hard to pick many positives out of that to tell you the truth,” Cullen said post-match in the Sportsground as the lengthy Connacht send-offs were just winding down.
Positives come in the lack of injury to pile atop the insult of a seven-try loss. Jordi Murphy pulled out of the matchday squad with a foot complaint and was removed as a precaution, so Caelan Doris took over the number 20 jersey to win his first cap. Not exactly a dream debut.
“We were second-best, 47-10, well-beaten. We just weren’t in the contact,” added the head coach.
Connacht were very good, you have to hand it to them. They were very dominant in the contact, so dominant in the collisions. That’s the area some of these guys need to get better at.”
Defeat in the Galway sunshine wasn’t just the biggest loss of the season for Leinster, it blew the other lows in this campaign out of the water. Before Saturday, 32-18 (Ospreys, following the Six Nations finale) and 38-19 (Cheetahs, early-season at altitude) represented their biggest defeats of the season.
Indeed, it’s the heaviest loss of Stuart Lancaster’s time in Dublin, because for anything resembling the 47-10 drubbing inspired by John Muldoon’s exit, Leinster have to look back to Connacht’s title-winning season in 2016. In January of that year, Wasps inflicted a 51-10 hammering on a bruised and battered Leinster outfit in the final round of Champions Cup pool matches.
Cullen insisted he wasn’t mad. Though he was disappointed.
“I wouldn’t be angry, because I see those guys working hard. There are a lot of things they need to develop in terms of mental toughness needed to dog it out in games like this.
“We work hard, they are young guys and Connacht had a lot of experience. But you never like to see that sort of thing happen to your team when you’re involved in coaching them, or in any capacity.”
A record defeat to their neighbours of the west shouldn’t necessarily spark memories of Leinster’s final regular season game of last season. One was a 37-point loss, the other a deficit of just four, but on both occasions the side sent on the road was unable to cope with a host passionately intent on bidding farewell to a club legend with a win.
As it turned out, Leinster only played one game after Ruan Pienaar’s big leaving do, showing up a long way under par for the Pro12 semi-final loss at home to Scarlets.
“Hopefully not,” said Cullen when the parallel was pointed out, “obviously we got beaten in the game (in Belfast) too, we just have to build up now for Racing. It’s a huge adventure.
“We have to go through the pain of this review first. We don’t have a game next week, we freshen up and start to get ready again.”
A Champions Cup final will keep all minds focused sharper than any league match could, but with the club experiencing losses to Benetton and a drubbing to Connacht either side of the impressive semi-final showing, the game-hungry Leinster front-liners can consider themselves well warned as they ramp up to San Mames.
