LEO CULLEN SAYS Leinster are looking forward to “a huge week” after booking a Heineken Champions Cup semi-final date with Toulouse, while Leicester Tigers captain Ellis Genge voiced his frustration at what he viewed as a “missed opportunity”.
The province progressed to the competition’s last four with a 23-14 win over Leicester at Welford Road, a sublime first-half performance pushing them into a 20-0 lead at the break, before a closer second half saw the Tigers claw their way back into the contest.
In the end however the damage had been done in that brilliant first 40 minutes, and Leinster can now begin planning for a heavyweight showdown with five time champions Toulouse in Dublin next weekend, with Cullen noting the French side present a multifaceted threat led by the world class half-back pairing of Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack.
“Toulouse look incredibly dangerous,” Cullen said.
Their half-backs are two of the best players in the world at the moment. They have a big, powerful pack as well who get them on the front foot. They’re a very dangerous team and it’s an unbelievable challenge for our guys but that’s what we want. It’s a huge week ahead. Hopefully we’ll get a big crowd at the Aviva and we’ll need every bit of energy we can get from that.”
While Leinster played some scintillating rugby in the first half against the Premiership leaders, they were less cohesive in a fractured second half which the home team won 14-3.
Cullen acknowledged his charges will need to produce a more complete performance next weekend if they are to keep their own charge for a fifth European title alive.
“We had really good intent in the first-half in attack and in defence,” Cullen continued.
“We put Tigers under a fair bit of pressure when they had the ball. In the second half they threw the kitchen sink at us. It didn’t feel comfortable in the second half from our point of view but we’re delighted to get a win.
Credit to the guys, their attitude was good, but there are parts of our performance that can get hell of a lot better. There was a bit of risk because some of our guys haven’t played for the last couple of weeks, and were they going to be a little shy in terms of that battle hardened piece? But we’ve got through to the next round and hopefully we’ll be in better shape going into next week.
“We’re going to have be better next week. It’s such a massive challenge up against Toulouse, five times champions.
“A lot of that Toulouse squad have won a Grand Slam with France. A lot of our Irish guys involved today will have played against France in the Six Nations over in Paris. It’s great for our guys to go up against their quality.”
Leicester captain Genge – who is set to join Bristol Bears in the summer – cut a frustrated figure as he tried to make sense of a thrilling encounter.
“I was gutted,” Genge said.
The difference from the first half to the second half… From 20-0 down to win the second half 14-3 shows where we should have been at. They are a brilliant side and if you play like that in the first half against a team like that then you are going to get punished, and then we had to chase the game.
“It is hard to win from 20-0 down. We did not stop fighting. We did what we did all year for 40 minutes, I just wish we had done it for 80 minutes.
“I don’t want to give an excuse and say they had two weeks off and we were knackered. I would play again now if it meant we had another crack of the whip. Being centrally contracted (with the IRFU), they benefit from being able to rest players as and when. I am just upset at the missed opportunity.”
Genge was then asked it if was hard to compete against a Leinster team which fielded 13 Ireland internationals in their starting 15.
“Look mate, I am not trying to be a p**** here but I don’t want you saying that. We came out there and we fought as hard as we could.
“They have 13 internationals but don’t put us in that bracket of ‘we gave it a good crack’. We could have won that game. I think you know that as well. If anyone is going to say that to me, please don’t because it is going to wind me right up.
“Our boys fought all game so I am not going to come here for someone to say we gave it a good crack and we’re plucky losers. I am not having a pop, but I am just ,saying please don’t say that to me.”
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