TWO GAMES INTO their Champions Cup campaign, Leinster sit pretty with two wins and maximum points from fixtures against Racing and Gloucester.
Having steamrolled the French side in Le Havre last week, Leinster made it two from two with a dominant defeat of a heavily-rotated Gloucester side at the RDS tonight.
The province never really looked troubled as they put nine tries on the English side, who controversially left their frontliners at home in a bid to keep players fresh ahead of their Premiership clash against Leicester next week.
Speaking after the game, Cullen was reluctant to be critical of Gloucester’s approach and instead kept the focus on how his own players have applied themselves across their opening two Champions Cup fixtures.
“I thought there was lots of things to like about both performances,” Cullen said.
“Dealing with different challenges. But we think there’s going to be tougher challenges ahead.
Gloucester, when they play at Kingsholm in front of the Shed, it’s a very, very proud club there so I’m sure they’ll come out firing. They have other players who I’m sure they’ll bring back into the picture as well, so it’s important that we’re not getting carried away with ourselves as well. But it’s nice to have 10 points on the board and looking forward to the challenge that’s ahead.”
Asked if such one-sided encounters are a bad look for the competition, the Leinster boss instead highlighted how his team kept the foot down even with the game long out of Gloucester’s reach – pointing to brilliant try-saving tackles from Garry Ringrose and Johnny Sexton late in the game.
“From our point of view, there was plenty of good stuff in the game. Plenty of things we can improve upon as well.
“Gloucester did test us. We needed to dig in well. The nil part is probably the most pleasing thing because they did have opportunities, some great scramble, a young player [Sexton] coming on the end there making a try-saving tackle over the line, that was good to see. That just shows some of the desire that is there as well, how important battling for every single point is.
“For us, it’s great. We’ve got 10 points, a healthy points difference and we’ll move on to the next challenge.
“I thought our guys were reasonably clinical considering, because you could see Gloucester, I know there’s a big scoreline but they did fire in well. Made life difficult at a few different breakdowns, and they were up for it. Similar to ourselves, if we were to send a young group wherever, they give a really good account of themselves, or certainly I believe they would.
“That’s just the way the game is now. At different stages, teams manage their squads for whatever reason.
“Credit to them, I thought they fired in and made life difficult for us. We got a couple of decisions and I thought we were generally reasonably good and composed in taking the opportunites when they came along. Obviously a couple of scores just before half time which gives that bit of separation – it went from 17-0 to 31-0 – that puts a totally different complexion on the game.
“Overall, really pleased with the win.”
Get instant updates on your province on The42 app. With Laya Healthcare, official health and wellbeing partner to Leinster, Munster and Connacht Rugby.
