IT WILL BE BACK to the drawing board for Leinster following their record 62-7 defeat at the hands of the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, on Saturday during their last round-robin match of the United Rugby Championship.
While the defeat for the Irish giants broke their momentum heading into the playoffs, it is far from panic-stations for the team that toured South Africa with a squad far from their strongest.
There were certainly lessons learnt by Leinster against a resurgent Bulls team who until recently went through a ten-match winless run in all competitions.
The Leinster assistant coach, Seán O’Brien, said that the biggest lessons they took from the drubbing in the capital city was that their defence needed to be more in tune, while when they did have the ball, it had to be looked after a lot better.
“Defensively is the first one – you have to go and take space away from the likes of the Bulls and we didn’t do that enough,” said O’Brien.
“We kind of sat on the gainline and let them undo us. They have big bodies and are big physical players and when they win that advantage line, they are able to play their game.
“Another one is looking after the ball when we do have it – not coughing up possession. We want to move teams around and we were not able to do that against the Bulls.”
O’Brien added that the Bulls approach to the game forced them into unforced errors, which is something that is uncharacteristic.
“The account was high out there from us and it is not what we are about, but it was definitely the way the Bulls played and imposed themselves on us which forced us into a lot of mistakes. When we had the ball, we just didn’t keep it and it’s hard to impose your gameplan on another when you keep coughing it up and making a lot of errors.
The former Ireland international added that on the injury front there doesn’t seem to be too much of a concern, while the younger players on tour would have gained some valuable experience.
“There are few bumps and bruises and we will access that over the next 24 hours. We’ve had two new caps which is on the positive side of it, in Conor O’Tighearnaigh and Liam Molony. We can kick them into gear a little over the next few weeks and the experience we had over the last two weeks will be good for those younger guys.
Leinster’s next match in the URC will be against the Sharks in Dublin in the playoffs, but first the attention shifts to the Champions Cup for their semi-final against Toulouse at home on Saturday.
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