LEO CULLEN HAS teed up tomorrow’s titanic clash between his Pro14 champions and defending European and English champions, Exeter, by insisting his players are determined to add to their CVs by notching up another title.
With five trophies in four years, Leinster have become the Pro14’s dominant side; Exeter, their opponents in tomorrow’s Champions Cup quarter-final, can make a similar boast in England. The difference, of course, is the latter league is considered the much stronger one.
“I definitely do believe that the group is as motivated as ever,” said Cullen earlier today. “It’s such fine margins on the day. Every team in the last eight have a strong desire to go on and win it out but it is never easy to win against a team as good as Exeter.
“Once they gain access into the 22, it has been well talked about how efficient they are there and how many tries come from that pick and go game.
“So, they are very, very efficient, very, very systematic in what they do. I think lots of teams know what is coming, but it’s can you actually disrupt that system that they have?
“We have had a decent week this week in terms of prepping and getting ready for Exeter. We know it’s going to be a huge challenge, but when you get to this stage of the tournament, you play the best teams in Europe. This is what you want to be involved in.”
Whether Leinster will still be involved beyond tomorrow evening depends on their capacity to come up with a defensive strategy to stop Exeter’s phase building obsession.
“The recent games we had against them a few years ago were unbelievable physical battles.
“We have looked back at those games for the last couple of weeks when this game was a possibility.
“I think it’s fair to say that both Leinster and Exeter have decent strong identities, do things a certain way.
“So, yeah, we know they are a systematic team, we know what they are trying to do. The next challenge is to try and stop what they are trying to do and disrupt that system of theirs.”
“From a defensive point of view we need to shut down the attacking system that they have.
“Then it’s trying to impose some of our game as well with a bit of unpredictability and things they may have not seen before. That’s always the challenge when you come to these games.
“The setpiece battle is always important. We found that out ourselves in the last quarter-final against Saracens when we came unstuck in that area. Without a quality platform its difficult and Saracens were able to build that scoreboard pressure against us and it was too late when we came back in the second-half. The guys are excited about getting going.”
