FORMER LEINSTER AND Ireland hooker Bernard Jackman says Leo Cullen’s side will need to produce a more physically powerful performance than their last four meetings with La Rochelle if they are to knock the reigning European kings out of the Champions Cup at the quarter-final stage, and Jackman believes that the addition of assistant coach Jacques Nienaber may prove decisive at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
Speaking on The 42′s rugby podcast, Rugby Weekly Extra, on Monday, Jackman relayed his concern that Leinster — and indeed all Irish teams, including the national side — remain susceptible to being out-muscled by a certain profile of opposition.
The former hooker, who cited TNT Sport pundit Dan Biggar’s perspective on Ireland’s Six Nations defeat to England, warned that Leinster will need to up the ante even from their pool-stage victory over La Rochelle and go “beast mode” if they are to inflict a first European knockout loss on Ronan O’Gara’s side since the 2020/21 final.
Jackman said of Leinster’s last-16 opponents, Leicester Tigers, that, “at times, when they brought that power game, they made Leinster look human.”
“This is the ultimate test,” he added of Saturday’s quarter against the back-to-back European champs, who have ended Leinster’s own Champions Cup dreams in each of the last three campaigns.
“Even that group game, La Rochelle weren’t on form. Leinster had to win. The game was incredibly tight!
“So, that power, historically, has taken away a lot of Leinster’s X-factor and flair. It’s become a battle — and Leinster can’t run away from that. They’re going to have to win those battles this weekend.
And to win them, I think they need four or five players to have ‘worldies’, big games.
Unfortunately, I look back at the semi-final that they lost during Covid, I look back at the two finals, and the best players on the field were wearing La Rochelle jerseys — in all three games. They had nearly double the amount of Leinster players who could go into the dressing-room afterwards and say, ‘Well, I had a nine-out-of-10 [performance].
“That’s where they lost it.”
Former Dragons and Grenoble head coach Jackman continued: “The reality is that Leinster haven’t been out-smarted by La Rochelle. Ireland weren’t necessarily out-smarted against England. It was literally an inability to deal with a team who were able to bully us in the collision and squeeze us.
“My opinion is that until we can prove on a regular basis that we can beat these big, physical teams, there has to be a doubt there.
“And the other doubt — and again, Leinster players won’t like me saying this, and Leinster fans might not either — but the reality is that until this team becomes better at winning silverware or closing out games or coming from behind to win in the last 10 minutes, there’s that doubt there as well.
“Even go back to the URC semi-final (v Munster): I know it wasn’t Leinster’s full-strength team but they lost the game when it was there to be won. And to be fair about the other three losses to La Rochelle, all of those matches were there to be won. And that’s not taking anything away from La Rochelle — La Rochelle did win them.”
Jackman, however, believes the hiring of South Africa’s two-time World Cup-winning head coach, Jacques Nienaber, could swing those fine margins in Leinster’s favour this Saturday.
He, Murray Kinsella and host Gavan Casey discussed on the podcast how Leinster have become more economical this season, scoring tries with less work but equally growing more comfortable without the ball — so much so that Leicester had more possession, and more territory to boot, in their 36-22 defeat to the eastern province on Saturday.
Jackman said of Nienaber: “He was the guy they needed. They didn’t need him to be top of the table in the URC. They could do that with Stuart [Lancaster] or they could do that without Stuart. That’s just the reality of how loaded they are in terms of quality.
“They need him to get them over the line in the Champions Cup. And it might be only 1%. But I think it comes down to this [game].
“And you might say, ‘Oh, it’s early, he only came after the World Cup, it’ll be next year before we see the best of him,’ et cetera, and I don’t doubt that.
“But they really need him this weekend to give them the confidence that they can win in knockout rugby.”
Jackman added that La Rochelle “looked comfortable against the Stormers even though they were 16-0 down”.
“At the end, obviously, they were on their own line,” he said. “They never really panicked.
“South Africans have that ability as well. They won their [World Cup] quarter-final, semi-final and final, winning by a point in each game, and yet you never thought they were that close in terms of how they acted.
“I think Leinster, to be fair, are getting practice at that just by nature of the fact that their performances haven’t been really convincing. They went behind against Leicester, they went behind against the Bulls, and haven’t really panicked — which is a good thing.”
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