New-look Leinster hope for brighter future

A NEW season and a new coach. Hell, they’ve even got a new image, but will it still be the same old Leinster this year?

It’s hard to imagine Leinster rugby ever facing a more significant eight months, starting tomorrow with their first competitive match under Declan Kidney against Cardiff Blues in the Celtic League.

Last year was an unmitigated disaster for the province. A so-so Celtic League is never enough to set any alarm bells ringing, but when they failed to negotiate the breach between the Heineken Cup’s group stage and the quarter-finals the warning signs were abundantly clear.

Some of the regular Celtic League foot soldiers were clearly unhappy with the input - or lack of it - from some of the established international stars, while the laid back style of leadership offered by Gary Ella was never going to fuse the camp together.

Cue Ella’s departure, Kidney’s arrival (eventually), the re-marketing of the entire outfit’s image and the decision to drop the “Lions” part of the brand.

“At this stage, everyone is out to make amends because we all realise we had a poor season last year,” says Leo Cullen, captain for tomorrow’s Donnybrook clash. “We underachieved and we know that. It’s fair to say that we haven’t shown that ability to grind out results when the going gets tough and that’s got to change.”

What won’t change is the absence of the bigger names for a large swathe of the Celtic League. There will be no O’Driscoll, Dempsey, Horgan, Corrigan et al wearing blue tomorrow afternoon, while Felipe Contepomi and Keith Gleeson are lost to injury.

If it bothers Cullen, though, he’s a master of deception. “Yeah, we still have a lot of guys missing for the start of the year. The guys who were away in South Africa with Ireland won’t be available for a while, but that’s something we just have to deal with.

“We could moan and complain about the players we’re without but you just have to get on with it. The flip side of the coin is that it gives some of our younger players the opportunity to get a run.”

It’s already easy to detect the feeling that it is a new start for Leinster. Kidney brought more than his favourite mug with him to his new office. Bobby Byrne and former Irish coach Gerry Murphy are his new assistants while ex-international, Paul McNaughton is the new manager. For all that, the getting-to-know-you period hasn’t been all that difficult.

“Pre-season is all about getting the fitness levels up so we’ve been concentrating on that. Declan came in a bit later once we had a lot of that done and his arrival with some other new faces on the coaching staff has added a bit of freshness to everything.” Cullen says.

“Declan brings a vast amount of experience from his time with Munster, the Irish set-up and so on.”

The biggest plus of all, of course, would be success in the Heineken Cup. It’s a measure of its status that, even though Leinster won the inaugural Celtic League two years ago, it’s Munster, with their two European Cup final appearances, who are still deemed Irish rugby’s top province.

Leinster’s aim now is to change all that.