Skipper Cullen revels in gritty Leinster work ethic

Perpignan in 2003.

Leicester two years later. The season in between when Leinster sank without trace in the pool stages. Leo Cullen hasn’t forgotten. The list of bad old days trips off his tongue like the lines from his favourite song.

By 2005, he had served the province for eight years and grown tired of defeats he labelled on Saturday as “embarrassing” and “amateurish”. By the time he upped and left for Leicester, there was no one at the helm at all after Declan Kidney’s return to Munster.