LEINSTER HEAD COACH Leo Cullen admits his side now have a mountain to climb if they are to escape Champions Cup Pool 5.
The two-time Heineken Cup champions were soundly beaten 6 – 33 at home to Wasps with fixtures away to Bath and Toulon ahead of them between now and 13 December.
“We were disjointed,” Cullen told BT Sport after watching his side beaten three tries to nil.
“I had expected to be disjointed at some stage, but wouldn’t have feared to be as bad as that.”
In his first year as a head coach, Cullen looked a little shell-shocked at the manner of a defeat in which Leinster were unable to find a consistent route across the gainline and were bereft of ideas to get around the problem.
“You force things – you see experienced players making uncharacteristic mistakes and it’s really frustrating.
“They guys prepped really well before the game, we had a few late injuries, but we should still have been good enough on the day.
Credit to Wasps, they came with a very simple gameplan. They took their opportunities when they arose. It’s very disappointing because I know we can be a lot better than that.
“We did create few opportunities, but again forcing last passes, not being accurate across the board, we turned the ball over very cheaply.
We’re playing Bath in six days’ time and we have a mountain to climb. We always knew this pool would be very tough and ti just got a hell of a lot tougher.
“(The defeat) leaves us scrambling. We’ve been in the situation where we’ve lost our opening pool game and qualified, buit it’s going to be tough. We can’t look beyond Bath now.”
