Seán Cronin: People wanted interpros bite. You can’t have it both ways

Seán Cronin says there’s no fear of Leinster and Munster’s heated interprovincial spilling over into next month’s Six Nations camp.

The Leinster hooker was forced to watch the game from home, as Munster raced to a 13-3 half time lead, with Cian Healy and Tadhg Furlong sent to the bin, and James Lowe sent off for his collision with the airborne Andrew Conway.

Johnny Sexton had a coming together with more than one Munster player and there were plenty of other outbursts and niggles as two sides packed with Ireland stars went toe to toe.

“I think some would call it healthy competition,” Cronin said. “I know things probably got a bit out of hand at the weekend, but I think the cards we got were more clumsy stuff instead of vicious play.

“People have been calling for a bit of bite to come back into the interprovincials for years; you can’t have it both ways.”

Joe Schmidt will name his last Six Nations squad in the coming weeks, giving these interprovincials the feel of ‘trial’ games, but Cronin is not a fan of using the word.

“Look, there is going to be competition. We’re going into a big, big year for Irish rugby as a whole,” he said.

“For the provinces, everyone is still in contention for Europe and you’ve got the Six Nations and the World Cup. There is a lot of competition for places.

Me and David Kilcoyne had a bit of a run-in a few years ago and we were calling each other two crazy Limerickmen after the game.

“It is competitive. It is rugby at the end of the day. I don’t like using the word ‘trials’ for these games, because you have huge games after this as well, so it is competition, it is healthy.

"Guys have got to work against each other in these games and know it is going to be a tough match and guys have got to get used to it.”

Leinster’s second league loss this season came just a week after they escaped another at home to Connacht.

Toulouse beat them on Champions Cup duty in October, ending their 10-game run of wins, while they also struggled to get past Bath in the Rec in early December.

Are Leinster underperforming or are the opposition upping their game?

“I think there is a big emphasis on trying to get one over on us,” said Cronin. “There are parts of our game we can improve on.

"We haven’t really started games too good, even though we started quite well on Saturday.

"I think we didn’t start well in Toulouse, we didn’t start well against Connacht. That’s a big focus for us going forward.”

Cronin’s try in the Stade Ernest-Wallon last October gave Leinster the lead over Toulouse for the first time in that game, but the wild celebrations after the French side came back to win proved to him just how much teams want to beat the reigning European champions.

“I think after you have a season like we did last year, there is a massive target on your back,” Cronin said.

They’re unlikely to be caught in Conference B, where they have a comfortable 16-point lead over second-placed Ulster, with Dan McFarland’s side visiting Dublin this weekend.

“I hope they name a strong team, it would be another good opportunity to go up against two good players (Rory Best and Rob Herring).

"That’s what you want to do, you want to test yourself against the best but mainly we need to put in a good performance this weekend, start well, get our discipline right, play our rugby, play the game we want to play and hopefully it will be another packed house and another good inter-pro game.

“They are coming off a loss as well, to Connacht, so they will be itching to get themselves back up to the level of performance where they were.

"They’ve a big game against Racing coming up as well the week after, so it is a big, important time for all the provinces, a big building week.”