LEINSTER HOPE to welcome a crowd just shy of 30,000 to Aviva Stadium on Saturday when the province take on a “dangerous” Munster team in the United Rugby Championship semi-finals.
With an attendance of less than 15,000 turning out for Leinster’s quarter-final defeat of the Cell C Sharks, the province are hoping this weekend’s knockout derby game will attract a significantly bigger crowd, with the capacity at Aviva Stadium to be set at 29,000.
Munster booked their place in the last four with a hard-earned win away at Glasgow, a result which ensured three of the four Irish provinces will compete in the URC semi-finals.
Graham Rowntree’s side will be underdogs heading to Dublin and could be without RG Snyman, Conor Murray, Calvin Nash, Malakai Fekitoa, Peter O’Mahony and Diarmuid Barron – who all picked up injuries in Glasgow – but Leinster head coach Leo Cullen was keen to stress Munster should prove a tricky assignment given their confidence-boosting recent run of form, as his own team continue to battle on two fronts.
“Munster are a team we play a hell of a lot and they are in the evolution of this new coaching team finding their feet after a slightly slow start to the season maybe,” Cullen said.
“Credit to them, they went away to South Africa and got two huge results against Stormers (last month), who hadn’t lost a game in, what, two years at home? And there was big pressure on those games.
Munster, because they weren’t featuring last week (in the Champions Cup semi-finals), that’s their sole focus and that makes that very dangerous because teams can get a bit distracted if your eyes are on two different things.
“Whatever group plays for us next week, we just need to be fully focused on that task.”
Having made nine changes to the team that beat Toulouse in the Champions Cup semi-finals for the Sharks game, Cullen confirmed he will rotate his squad again this weekend with an eye on the 20 May Champions Cup final date with La Rochelle.
“Yeah, the only difference was that when we were going into this (Sharks) game we didn’t know whether there was going to be a next week. We didn’t actually spend a huge amount of time talking about it, we said let’s see how we get on this week, and that’s the thing.
“There’s players that were unlucky to miss out this week who we were pretty keen to involve in some capacity at some stage so yeah, they’re just chomping at the bit, ready to go, so hopefully those guys will feature.
“We’ll see about the rest of them but there’ll be a few changes for sure.”
There certainly won’t be any lack of motivation among a group who last year, failed to collect a trophy for the first time since the 2016/17 campaign.
The end of last season was like a sick feeling and when you go through these sequence of games, they’re such big games and you have to be prepared to give your all on the day.
“But the real challenge is then trying to do it again (week on week), so you see the Sharks, they’ve been through Europe this year, that sequence, and the travel that they’ve had to go through. They’ve a ton of injuries at the moment, just talking to their coaches. Some of the Springbok guys have been well documented but they have other key players for them that have been missing as well.
“Again, just that management of a group fighting on two fronts, it’s so bloody important now. The dynamic at the end of the season it’s incredible really. But that’s the challenge on both fronts.”
Reflecting on the win against the Sharks, Cullen stated he was happy with much of the performance while admitting his team could have been more clinical when it was 15 v 15 – Leinster scoring 21 points across the two spells the visitors were reduced to 14 men.
“It’s always work to do, for sure, but it is just about getting through to the next round so… The game was disjointed today, it was a little bit disjointed in the last 20 the last day (against Toulouse) as well.
“Again, the conditions – rain, showers – play a part in all that as well. You just have to be very disciplined… What was the score when we had a man in the bin against Leicester Tigers? (10-0) So we actually came out on top in that period. The game is so dynamic and fluid.
“There was a cleanout at the end there when the Sharks lose a guy to the bin and they get a try chalked off, we go up the other end and score one shortly after. You just have to deal with those moments in the game.”
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