THE LAST FEW weeks have seen the province putting themselves in a strong position across both the United Rugby Championship and the European Champions Cup, but defence specialist Jacques Nienaber has insisted Leinster aren’t quite ‘where they should be yet’ in the current campaign.

Courtesy of back-to-back knockout victories against Edinburgh and Sale Sharks in the Aviva Stadium, Leinster have set themselves up for a semi-final bout with Toulon in Europe’s top-tier at the same venue next Saturday week (2 May).

On either side of these wins, the eastern province also got the better of Scarlets and Ulster in the URC, with the latter triumph in Belfast last Friday moving them up to third in the league standings.

Yet even though they go into this weekend’s round 16 duel away to Benetton in the URC on a good run of form, Leinster’s senior coach Nienaber believes improvements can be made for their latest quest for silverware on two fronts in the coming weeks.

“How much room is there to improve? I know we have to improve. I don’t think we are where we should be yet, but how much? That lies in the potential of the group.

“Defensively, are we currently operating at our full potential? No, I don’t think we are. I think there’s more in this group,” Nienaber explained at a Leinster media briefing in UCD yesterday.

“That’s purely me thinking that. How do you measure potential? It’s literally impossible, but my belief is that this group is still better than what they are. That is why I say we still need to improve. Grow and get better going into the back end. Because it just gets tougher from here.”

While Nienaber and Leinster will be doing everything to ensure destiny is in their own hands during the business end of 2025-26, South Africa’s World Cup-winning head coach from 2023 said they might also need fortune to smile upon them in their battle for URC and Champions Cup supremacy.

“You need a little bit of luck in any game. Not just the first two years here. If you look at big, knockout games I’ve been part of, not with Leinster. Cheslin Kolbe charged down a conversion to win a quarter-final in a World Cup [in 2023]. Big moments sometimes make or break. You can call it luck, you can call it a bounce of a ball.

“You need to play the big moments well, and even if you do that, you need a little bit of luck. I think people will cringe. Maybe I’m using the wrong word from an Afrikaans point of view as luck, but you need things to sometimes go your way, a call. Sometimes it goes your way, and you capitalise on it.”

Despite making 12 changes to the side that had overcome Sale Sharks in a Champions Cup quarter-final just six days earlier, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen saw his side racing into a 29-0 lead with 52 minutes on the clock in their URC showdown with interprovincial rivals Ulster in Affidea Stadium at the end of last week.

A 10-minute spell that saw them conceding three converted tries and losing Max Deegan to a 20-minute red card ramped up the pressure on Leinster in the second half, but the Blues held firm to come away with a 29-21 bonus point success.

One of the players drafted into the starting line-up for the visit of Ulster was Sam Prendergast, who missed out on the match day 23 for those European meetings with Edinburgh and Sale.

It has been a tough couple of months for the Kildare native after he found himself missing the cut for the final three rounds of Ireland’s Six Nations Championship campaign earlier this year.

However, last Friday saw Prendergast amassing 14 points (including a second-half try) in a player-of-the-match performance for his side.

It was a timely boost for the fly-half with some big games on the horizon, but despite reserving praise for his display against Ulster, Nienaber also name-checked several others who he felt seized upon their chance to impress the Leinster coaches.

“I don’t want to ringfence Sam. If you look at Sam, I thought Sam was outstanding. If you look at Jimmy [O’Brien], at Robbie [Henshaw], who hasn’t had a lot of opportunities up to late. I thought he was outstanding. I thought [Brian] Deeny had an outstanding game, but he had lots of opportunities, Gus McCarthy coming back in again. So there are a lot of guys, and they all work extremely hard,” Nienaber added.

“Sam, I said it last time. It’s tough, but that’s pro sport. It’s always going to go through ebbs and flows. He’s working hard behind the scenes and trying to improve. I’m happy for him and the others who didn’t have a lot of opportunities in the last couple of weeks.”