THE LEINSTER MANAGEMENT team insists that the decision to send a weakened squad to South Africa was made with the club’s dual-title ambitions in mind.
Having sustained heavy beatings to the Lions and Stormers over the past two weeks, Leinster will return to Dublin empty handed in terms of United Rugby Championship points.
Expectations were certainly tempered when a under-strength side was deployed to South Africa, while the first-choice side remained in Ireland to prepare for the all-important Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton Saints.
Nevertheless, few could have predicted that Leinster would concede 86 points and 11 tries over the two matches, or that the attack would register a mere 24 points and four tries over a period of 160 minutes.
These results are unlikely to impact on their preparations for the upcoming Champions Cup against Northampton.
Jacques Nienaber left South Africa this past Tuesday to rejoin the first-choice Leinster squad in Dublin. Leo Cullen skipped the post-match press conference on Saturday night, in order to make a flight back to the northern hemisphere. Clearly the semi-final is the immediate priority.
And yet, there’s a chance that the barren tour may hurt Leinster’s chances of topping the URC table. Glasgow Warriors, who beat Zebre Parma on Saturday, have moved ahead of Leinster with three league rounds to play.
After the loss to the Stormers, Leinster attack coach Kieran Hallett defended the decision to split the squads in order to meet the demands of competing across two tournaments – and ultimately pushing for two titles.
“It’s always disappointing not to come away with the points,” Hallett said.
That is what you set out to do. If we’re looking for positives, we had a lot of individual growth during this tour – and that may benefit us in the long term.
“Moving on from the Lions game, we challenged the young players to show more fight and intent. They showed that during periods of this game, and we’re happy with that.
“We let ourselves down with a few mistakes around the set-piece launch, and that has to improve.”
Leinster have sent weakened teams to South Africa in past seasons. While those teams haven’t always claimed victories, they have accumulated sufficient points to boost the club’s URC tally – and ensure that they eventually top the league table.
Hallett reiterated that sacrifices needed to be made when a club was juggling the demands of competing in two big tournaments.
“You never want to lose games, and you really want to try and win two trophies,” he said.
There will be sticky parts of the season, though, where you have to make decisions and ask whether it’s going to be viable to play the same team five weekends in a row.
“It’s a very transient situation in the squad, a very [clear] split, and we’re used to that internally even though externally people probably don’t understand that [process].
“The group goes away for November, for Six Nations, and now for this part of the season, and the rest of the squad has to perform.”
After tackling Saints next week, Leinster will play two URC matches against Ospreys and Ulster, before competing in a possible Champions Cup final ahead of their final league match against Connacht.