WHILE LEINSTER HEAD coach Leo Cullen was busy negotiating a brace of tough fixtures on South African soil for the past fortnight, his colleague Stuart Lancaster operated off an entirely different remit.
Instead of joining the former second-row on a mini-tour of the southern hemisphere nation, Lancaster remained behind at the province’s training base in UCD with another group of players who weren’t required for the United Rugby Championship clashes against Cell C Sharks and DHL Stormers.
Included amongst this cohort were 16 men who had featured for Leinster in their Champions Cup Round of 16 second leg victory against Connacht on 15 April.
This number later became 17 after a shoulder injury brought Rónan Kelleher’s time in South Africa to an abrupt halt. Given how close these games were to Saturday’s crucial Champions Cup quarter-final showdown with Leicester Tigers at Welford Road – and the fact they had developed a healthy cushion at the summit of the URC – it was felt Leinster could take a gamble by bringing a fringe travelling party to Durban and Cape Town.
“The rationale is that if we sent everyone to South Africa the boys would literally only have been back two hours ago [2.30pm on Monday]. They won’t be able to train today, they will have limited training tomorrow, Wednesday off. So in the lead-up to a Champions Cup game, that is limited preparation with the best will in the world,” the Leinster senior coach said when speaking to the media yesterday.
“We felt that since we’d had a buffer in the URC, we’d earned that right. We worked hard during the season and every point had counted. We didn’t lose many games and that gave us the chance to go with a younger squad to get that experience.
“We got the two bonus points that we needed which means we can’t be caught, so we achieved our objective of coming first in the competition. Which means we get a home quarter-final and semi-final, and potentially a home final in the URC.”
On the flip side, this weekend will see Leinster encountering a Leicester outfit that were at full strength when clinically defeating Bristol on a final margin of 56-26 in the English Premiership last Saturday. Nonetheless, it isn’t the first time the eastern province have found themselves in this scenario during the 2021/22 season and Lancaster is confident ring rust won’t be an issue.
“It was just a different scenario for us. We were flying back from South Africa and that was the decision we made. One of the things I would draw on, however, would be the Christmas period when we didn’t have any games for three or four weeks because of that Covid break.
“It was a similar scenario because we hadn’t played and were doing an awful amount of work in terms of contact and getting match ready in training. I’d like to think that when we did return to play that Montpellier game in the RDS, and then when we went to Bath, the boys who then went into [Ireland] camp were in really good shape. So we know it can be done.”
Having finished second bottom of the Premiership in 2019/20 [and only doing so because Saracens were deducted a whopping 105 points for repeated salary cap breaches], it is remarkable to see how Leicester have bounced back to their present position of strength. Currently leading the way in their domestic league, the Tigers are also unbeaten in this season’s Champions Cup.
Like Lancaster, Leicester head coach Steve Borthwick is a native of Cumbria in the north-west of England. He first took on this role in July 2020 and the galvanising effect the ex-Saracens lock is having on Leinster’s forthcoming opponents hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“He has recruited very effectively, he has transformed the belief and the motivation in the existing players. They still have those young talented players coming through. He has recruited some effective coaches both in the S&C department, but also in the technical department. They’re all very clear on what the plan and strategy is and everyone buys into it,” Lancaster said of the job being done by his fellow Cumbrian.
“It makes them a very, very hard team to beat. I think that was their initial mindset. Let’s be hard to beat and they’ve certainly achieved that. If you take European games into consideration as well, they’ve played 30-odd games this season and lost only four. That’s pretty impressive.
“I’ve seen them in many games when they’ve won in the last five or 10 minutes, so their doggedness and desire to work hard for each other is abundantly clear. They’re just really well coached to play an effective game plan that works and we’ll have to be at our best, for sure. Every player, if they’re not an international then they’re international quality. It’s a great match up.”
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