FOR ALL THE training, all the analysis and all the mental preparation Leinster would have done over the last couple of weeks, you just can’t fully prepare yourself for an experience like Welford Road in knockout European rugby.
From long before Leicester Tigers and Leinster took to the field on Saturday, there was a sense of occasion around one of English rugby’s great venues.
Travelling supporters in blue jerseys buzzed around the city centre while the home faithful came out in force, a crowd just shy of 20,000 clicking through the turnstiles on the day – despite Leicester’s strong form, the Tigers have only sold out the 25,800 capacity stadium once this season.
For Leinster boss Leo Cullen, it proved a day to savour. The former Leicester player saw his Leinster side storm into a commanding 20-0 first-half lead which built the platform for a 23-14 win that saw them march through to the semi-final stages of the Heineken Champions Cup, where Toulouse now lie in wait, the two heavyweights set to face off in the Aviva Stadium at 3pm on Saturday.
Cullen spent two seasons with the Tigers in the mid-2000s, and Saturday’s return stirred up some old memories; the crowds waiting to greet the team buses, the raucous atmosphere inside the ground and some of the tricks Leicester like to use to upset their visitors.
“Ah, getting off the bus was outstanding, the Leinster fans clapping us off the bus. It was strange being in the (away) dressing-rooms there,” Cullen said.
Even when we arrived down, the pitch was covered in water. I don’t know if you guys spotted that, but obviously they’d done a complete job on the pitch which had us squelching around, but when George Ford slipped over in the wet patch (in the second half), that made me laugh.”
It’s easier to see the lighter side of things when you’re heading for home with a win under your belt.
This morning it will back to business out in UCD as the province turn their attention to a huge semi-final clash with Toulouse. They are due to issue a squad update today having seen Johnny Sexton, Jimmy O’Brien (both HIAs) and Cian Healy all forced off with knocks, although after the game Cullen was initially optimistic – “I’m sure Johnny will be good to go. They all look reasonably okay.”
He’s got plenty to be happy about. On Saturday, Leinster played some excellent rugby across the first half as they built up a commanding 20-0 lead. It left the Premiership leaders needing to climb a mountain that would make Edmund Hillary wince.
To their credit, they did their bit to keep it interesting. Chris Ashton’s try made things tense for Leinster while Nic Dolly’s late score saw the scoreboard turn a little more palatable for the English side.
Still, the province never really looked like throwing their lead away, and while Cullen would have much prefered a home quarter-final, he knows his team will benefit from Saturday’s experience, the Leicester support more than happy to create a racket and get on Leinster’s back throughout.
It was also clear that his decision to leave Leinster’s frontliners at home for the recent United Rugby Championship trip to South Africa paid off. While most of the starting team hadn’t played a game since the Connacht win on 15 April, they brought a ferocious intensity to this contest as they suffocated Leicester in the opening 40, before a determined defensive display saw them over the line in the second period.
“I think some of our guys will be better for the game,” Cullen continued.
“If we’d lost this game everyone would have been saying should they have played a game the last two weeks, and where would we play that game? It would have been impossible in terms of the trip to South Africa. I was there (in South Africa) so I knew what it was like coming back in Monday morning. It’s not easy to turn that around. The English and French teams will have to face that in the future in Europe as well if they get drawn against them.
It’s just a totally different dynamic so, yeah, there was risk in what we had done but we are through to the next round now and the guys will hopefully be better for the game, even if that doesn’t guarantee anything.
“Toulouse is an unbelievably exciting challenge. They won the Top 14, won Europe (last season), five-time champions and a lot of their players won the Grand Slam. It’s all there, isn’t it? But that’s what you want. You want to play the best and this is probably it.
“Big club, all the resources. I remember us having this conversation seven or eight years ago: do we have a chance against them at all? Let’s see. We’ll do everything we can. We’ve done that the last number of years.”
Hooker Dan Sheehan was equally keen to soak up the occasion. Having broken through during the Covid days of empty stadiums, experiences like Saturday are still relatively new to the 23-year-old.
“Old school ground, old school dressing room. I’m sweating here still,” said Sheehan, speaking shortly after full-time at Welford Road, his thoughts already turning towards that massive clash with Toulouse.
“I spent 15 years just sitting on the couch watching it (Champions Cup) or being at the games. To be over the whitewash playing in a game like this is hugely exciting.
“It’s something that even now, I’m kind of getting tingles thinking about it. It’s one of the biggest games I will be involved in, hopefully.
They (Toulouse) have five stars, it’s what we want. But looking at their history and our history, it’s pretty similar. Two massive European clubs going head-to-head, which is exactly what you want. You have to beat the best to win. It’s a hugely exciting game, especially in the Aviva.”
As Leinster pick through this performance, they’ll hone in on how the Tigers managed to make life more difficult for them after the break, and why their setpiece experienced a few tricky moments.
“We need to be able to look back on that game and learn from our mistakes and how we can get control back in the game because I think we struggled to get a foothold back in the game,” Sheehan added.
“We maybe had a few breaks but within five minutes, we were back in our own 22 again. It’s just about managing territory and managing how the whole game unfolds, which will be crucial next week.”
The scrum was a particularly fascinating battle given how this year’s Six Nations meeting between England and Ireland played out. Two of the main players from that encounter were involved again as Tigers captain Ellis Genge and Leinster tighthead Tadhg Furlong sized each other up.
There was a notable sense of anticipation surrounding the day’s first scrum, and while the home side came out on top of that exchange, Sheehan says the Leinster pack never worried about their ability to gain control of that area.
“No. I don’t think so. We have obviously spoken massively about it. There were four of the same faces in that scrum and then obviously the ref is the same (from the England-Ireland game). We had prepared for the last three weeks to be able to manage both ways, if it goes against us, be able to fix it ourselves.
“That was one thing we talked about from that Ireland-England game, we didn’t find a solution right away. We relied on the review after the game but that’s obviously too late. I think our problem-solving was better (against Leicester).”
- Originally published at 07.00
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