I’ve been there: Cullen counsels ‘grieving’ Toner

Leo Cullen has told Devin Toner that the best way to shake off his World Cup disappointment is to ‘play the house down’ for Leinster.

The Leinster head coach is the ideal man to help Toner work his way through the shock of being left out of Joe Schmidt’s World Cup squad.

Cullen received the same crushing call in 2003, when he was left out by Eddie O’Sullivan in favour of Malcolm O’Kelly, Donncha O’Callaghan, Gary Longwell, and the up-and-coming Paul O’Connell.

Four years later, O’Sullivan picked just three locks, and with Longwell out of the picture, it was Cullen who was disappointed once more.

“That phone call in 2003, I remember like it was yesterday,” Cullen said, at the Dublin launch of this season’s Guinness PRO14.

“I was not expecting that phone call. I was full sure I was going to the World Cup, and I was as upset as I’ve ever been.

“I couldn’t understand it for the life of me. You get angry and you go through all that grieving process. At some point you have to get to the acceptance phase and move on.

At some point it is going to stunt you. It is going to stunt you if you can’t get over that grieving cycle. It’s easier said than done. People deal with grief in many different ways.

"You go through that exact same cycle.

“So Devin must just park it and focus. Get back playing. Blow it away in his next game. Play the house down. If something happens, something happens. I think he’s just better just focusing on the performance piece.

“In 2007, I had the same exact disappointment again,” he added.

“But I was expecting the call even though I got it incredibly late. That window I remember vividly as well because I was supposed to call around to friends and it was: ‘I’m waiting for this call.’

“It was a very different view. I was more pragmatic — ‘I’m here, ready, when you need me’. So that was the view I had then. I couldn’t deal with it in 2003.

"The shock… I ended up getting injured after that and had shoulder surgery during the World Cup. Who knows, maybe I’d have gone and got injured in the first training session or match.

“You’ve just got to be able to park it and move on and focus on your performance, how can you get better and be in the best possible shape you can be when the call arrives.”

Cullen admits it’s a “big if” for Toner to be called up at this late stage, with James Ryan, Iain Henderson, Jean Kleyn and Tadhg Beirne training away in Japan.

“No one wants to leave the World Cup, do they? So it would be dragging them out of there. But for Dev what can he control? He just needs to try and play well.

What does that mean? Play well for Leinster. Then the World Cup will come to an end and we will be in Europe… then there’s the Six Nations. He needs to put himself in the shop window for the Six Nations and get back playing for Ireland.

“There’s the grieving process that you get over as quickly as you can and not carry it around with you, because it can be quite visible to people if you do.”