LEINSTER HEAD COACH Leo Cullen is expecting Montpellier to represent a serious step up after watching his team ease past Bath on Saturday.
An early blitz gave Leinster a platform to build a healthy lead against the struggling English side at the Aviva Stadium, before the province eased up in the second half of what was ultimately a disjointed performance.
That lack of cohesion – something which has cropped up previously for Leinster this season – is a concern for Cullen, who anticipates a more testing evening against Montpellier on Friday night.
The French side were desperately poor across the first half of last season, before the arrival of Philippe Saint-André steadied the ship and launched the club towards Challenge Cup success, beating a strong Leicester Tigers team in the decider.
This season, Montpellier sit third in the Top 14 table, seven points off leaders Bordeaux, and look to be targeting their home games in the Champions Cup. They held a number of frontline players in reserve for their trip to Sandy Park on Saturday, where they lost heavily to Exeter, suggesting this Leinster tie is the game they really want to win.
“They are always tough battles over there and Montpellier are in really good form at the moment,” Cullen said, speaking before Exeter and Montpellier had kicked off in Devon.
“You just look up their website and you see some of the quality of the stars that they have in their squad. It certainly focuses the mind very quickly.
“I’ve watched a lot of them and we have played them in recent seasons as well so we have a reasonable idea but they are very pragmatic in the way they play now.
I remember Philipe Saint-André in his Sale days, I was in England playing for Leicester at the time, so that type of game that they will play based around forward power and momentum, we will need to get ourselves right for that physical confrontation.
“They have some big bodies that are used to playing big bodies week in and week out in the Top 14. They kick the ball a lot as well so we need to be ready for that aerial challenge that we think will come. It’s a short turnaround too.”
Cullen didn’t hide his frustrations with how Leinster let the intensity slip against Bath, pointing out that for all their dominance in terms of territory, Bath won the final 20 minutes 7-0.
The quality had dropped even before that closing period. As well as losing possession off their own ball at the setpiece, the hosts coughed up 12 penalties and conceded 15 turnovers.
Cullen expects Leinster to need a more complete display at the GGL Stadium on Friday against a powerful Montpellier side.
“It’s also about bringing that level of intensity so we can impose our game. I thought we did that for large parts of the first-half in particular (against Bath) and you are making it difficult for teams to play against us. That’s important that we do that, impose our game on the opposition. That’s the challenge for us.
“It’s one thing doing it at home in the Aviva and another away from home at nine o’clock on a Friday night in Montpellier.”
Leinster came through the opening weekend of European action unscathed in terms of injuries, and have a host of frontline players to welcome back over the coming weeks. Johnny Sexton, Jack Conan, Robbie Henshaw, James Ryan, Dan Leavy and Harry Byrne all sat out the Bath win, and later today, Leinster will provide an update on the three unidentified senior players who tested positive for Covid-19.
Still, Cullen was able to send out a strong team against Bath, which made the disjointed nature of some of their play even more perplexing. In particular, Leinster displayed a few uncharacteristic creaks around the scrum and lineout.
“Definitely, yeah, but it was across the board, we were a little bit loose,” Cullen added.
“It’s that lapse in concentration, one scrum going forward and not the next, the referee making a decision. They are big moments in the game, you could have a 30-40m lineout either way, they are massive swings. In a tight affair they are massive so we need to make sure we get all those right.
“We had way too many turnovers as well, particularly in the second-half, so we just need to tighten up our game across the board.”
