LEINSTER HEAD COACH Leo Cullen didn’t try play down the gulf in quality between his own team and Munster after the Pro14 champions suffered a 24-point loss at the RDS in their opening Rainbow Cup fixture.

In an often scrappy, error-ridden encounter, Munster provided the few moments of real quality and brought much more intensity to their play, looking to move the ball with pace and placing a big focus on their linespeed.

The visitors also controlled the forward battle and had the physical edge throughout, with the likes of CJ Stander, Tadhg Beirne and the excellent Damian de Allende all standing out against a youthful, less experienced Leinster team.

“In terms of the contact area we were well and truly second best,” Cullen said. 

“Munster are very aggressive in that area and unfortunately that leads to a lot of problems.

“We actually created a lot of opportunities, we weren’t accurate around some of the set-piece pieces as well.

“So overall, we were well and truly second best, I thought.”

Cullen also said he expects Garry Ringrose and James Ryan to both be fit for next weekend’s Champions Cup semi-final meeting with La Rochelle.

The two Ireland internationals returned from injury for the game but were removed as Munster moved clear in the second half. Leinster also lost out-half Harry Byrne to injury in the opening five minutes.

 “Garry and James are OK, it’s just trying to manage guys who haven’t been in for a while,” Cullen said.

“It was disappointing with Harry going off very early, he has a hamstring so we’ll see how bad that is. Caelan (Doris) had a tight hamstring here yesterday, Ciaran Frawley, he had a tight hamstring but nothing major for him.”

The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!