LEO CULLEN, THE Leinster coach, expressed relief this evening after his side scrapped their way to a 20-13 victory over Ulster in Belfast.
Despite dominating the first hour, building a 17-point lead, Cullen’s Leinster side were left in survival mode for the closing 10 minutes of this game. A disallowed Aaron Sexton try proved crucial to their win. Overall, Cullen was able to say the positives outweighed the negatives in his performance.
“The lads battled out there today,” he said. “It was not perfect but they found a way to get the job done as the conditions deteriorated.
“It was a pretty hard type of game to coach because it was a very hard game to practice.
“You have got to put the building blocks in place in terms of this season and that requires digging out a win on an ugly night.
“There were lots of parts of the performance that could be a hell of a lot better.
“The game could have been put to bed ten minutes into the second-half, particularly as we had managed the game really smartly in the first-half. At the start of the second-half, we have a 20-3 lead and had a line-out five metres out from their line. And then there is a crooked throw.
“We give away a scrum penalty and Ulster are relieved in terms of pressure.
“We gave Ulster access back into the game and before we knew it, we were under the pump. But to be fair to the lads, they scrambled well. There was an unbelievable try-saving tackle by Charlie Ngatai (on Aaron Sexton when the score was 20-10).
“We were under serious pressure at different stages of the second-half. To win in those circumstances was pleasing.”
For Ulster’s Dan McFarland, it was a different story.
His team came into tonight’s game with two wins under their belt. They left with a dose of reality, namely that Leinster still have the edge on them.
“They’re a good team but I feel we’re better than the performance that we put in tonight,” said McFarland.
“They came up and showed intensity in every moment of the game and we lost a few of those battles, collisions-wise, set-piece-wise, skills-wise.
“There are a couple of things that we’ll have to address.
“There may have been an opportunity to clear our lines if we played it quickly but it clearly wasn’t there and it ended up in a costly try to them.
“Plus there were occasions in the first-half when it felt like we could have controlled the pitch better in terms of our decision-making. There were also times when we chased hard and put pressure on them but they didn’t make many mistakes and we did.”
