Cullen awaits Tiger onslaught

LEO CULLEN won a Premiership title and EDF Energy Cup and also played in a Heineken Cup final with Leicester Tigers but some of the Leinster captain’s fondest memories of his time in the East Midlands are reserved for his days on the club’s training pitches.

Every session was a battle, where the law of the jungle reigned and players routinely “kicked lumps out of each other”. Then there were the times when the forwards would be sentenced to 50 scrums, one after another after another. “Old school”, he called it.

Martin Johnson and Neil Back had hung up their boots by the time Cullen arrived in the summer of 2005 but soul-mates like Graham Rowntree, Julian White, Martin Corry, Ben Kay and Louis Deacon were still at Welford Road.