Cullen sees Connacht clash as season’s defining moment

It’s a fair bet that one of the most inspired decisions made by Leinster Rugby in the last decade was to woo Leo Cullen back from high-end English Premiership rugby with Leicester Tigers, and then make him captain.

Three Heineken Cup titles on, Cullen is set to make his 100th appearance for the Irish province against Connacht in the RaboDirect Pro12 at the RDS on Saturday night (7:45pm kick-off) and he is well aware of the importance of the fixture.

Apart from wanting to avenge an embarrassing 36-6 defeat at the Sportsground earlier in the season, Leinster need the points to help keep them in touch with the top four — they are currently a single point outside the play-off group.

Cullen sees it clearly: “From our perspective we have to try and build some momentum coming into a busy next few weeks which will go a long way to defining the rest of the season.

“We need some big results and we need to try and get some more rhythm to our play. Against Clermont in the Aviva, we gave away too many kickable penalties and (Morgan) Parra kicked seven out of eight of them. Then against Ulster Paddy Jackson missed a few fairly kickable shots at goal, but Ruan Pienaar stepped up and kicked well.”

He puts Connacht’s Dan Parks into the same category as the aforementioned duo on the basis of the threat he poses: “Parks will punish any penalties we give away because he has such a high kicking percentage and has proven himself time and again over the years. So we need to be more careful about giving quality sides easy opportunities to keep the scoreboard ticking over. These kinds of games are won and lost over the finest of margins.”

Cullen missed the on-field action against Connacht last time out but that doesn’t lessen the hurt: “We learned a few harsh lessons over in the Sportsground last time out against Connacht. I acted as water-boy that day and it was tough watching from the sidelines. They brought greater physicality to the game and they dominated us in that regard in Galway. We can’t allow them to have that kind of an upper hand again.

“We obviously need to get a few more points on the board. When we get a few more bodies on the deck that will boost competition for places because we’ve been disrupted through the first half of the season and we have lacked a bit of fluency thus far.

“Ulster are racing clear at the top of the table and they’re going to be very hard to rein in, so we need to dig deep to get back into the top four. Then we travel to Edinburgh in the PRO12 before facing Scarlets at home in Europe and then travel to Exeter Chiefs where they have a great record at home.

“By the end of January we’ll know our fate and we have a bit of ground to catch up on. And, for us, that process starts this weekend.”