IN MANY RESPECTS you will see two Leinster teams over the weekend. Their first XV will be in the Aviva on Sunday but the crew who line out in the RDS tomorrow night against the South African franchise, the Emirates Lions, have their own agenda.
While it is easy enough to overlook this fixture and allow it fly under the radar, all the while knowing there are bigger things to occupy the mind – Wales and England; Scotland and France; Ireland and Italy; for Leo Cullen, the Leinster coach, this low-key URC fixture is the biggest show in town.
Here’s why. A year ago, Leinster were outmuscled by La Rochelle in the Champions Cup semi-final. Six months prior to that, it was Saracens who put manners on them, that time in a European quarter-final.
Each time, the post-mortem delivered identical outcomes. Leinster, for all their qualities, struggled to tough it out against bigger, heavier opponents. In this context, there is a relevance to tomorrow’s fixture that Cullen was happy to emphasise this afternoon.
Rather than a mere box-ticking exercise, the visit of South Africa’s Lions (Transvaal to the old timers), is a preparatory step to bigger days.
“Like a lot of South African teams, they have a very strong scrum, probably the strongest scrum of all the four (South African) franchises,” said Cullen. “Unless we get accuracy into our performance then we could get into a lot of trouble.
“Of all the South African teams they are probably best suited to these (Irish winter) conditions because they have such a big, strong pack.
“You can’t switch off for a second against these teams. It is the fundamentals of the game that you get tested on. I’m talking around the set-piece battle, around the scrum and line-out drives in particular.
“Look, we saw it in the World Cup final where England – coming from an impressive semi-final win over New Zealand – then faced a South African side who did what Springboks side do best. They put the squeeze on the opposition.
“And they (the Lions) have the capabilities to do just that. That is something we need to learn from all the time. Think back to that game we lost to Saracens. It is the attention to detail that we need to focus on in these battles. Size helps, of course – that is something we are conscious of.
“When we talked about the possibility of the four teams from South Africa coming into the Pro14 as it was then, there was a big excitement level, because we knew it would test our players more and more which hopefully will set us up better for knock-out rugby later in the season when we get to face those big French packs who recruit from all over the world.”
Leinster did a bit of recruitment of their own today, confirming the signing of lock, Jason Jenkins, from Munster. Once capped by the Springboks, Jenkins has managed just one appearance for Munster this season, because of injury. “His understanding of the four South African teams is valuable detail for us. I saw him first playing at Under 20 level, saw him at Super Rugby level – and chatted to Johann (van Graan, the Munster coach) to see how he was settling in. He seems to have settled in well. So, it’ll be good to get him.
“There is plenty there that we can learn from.”
