Leo Cullen turns focus to Munster as Leinster look to draw on resources for knockout run

The eastern province have at least two big weekends coming up.

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen before the United Rugby Championship Quarter-Final against Cell C Sharks at the Aviva Stadium. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Leinster 35 

Cell C Sharks 5 

Leo Cullen might argue differently but this was about as close to perfect a day as Leinster could have asked for as they dig into their vast resources and contemplate what could yet be a stretch of five knockout games in as many weeks.

Beat Munster in next Saturday’s URC semi-final and that quintet of fixtures would be confirmed. It’s a daunting enough ask, even for a club with Leinster’s quality and quantity of personnel, and one that would have ‘home’ advantage throughout.

The Sharks, devoid of far too many key players, lacked anything like the bite to make this an actual contest beyond their opening try from Boeta Chamberlain. The five Leinster put up in response delivered an air of inevitability long before the finish.

It did have some blemishes.

Cullen was vague when asked about Tadhg Furlong, who didn’t reappear after the interval, and Cian Healy, who departed injured. And he laughed off the sight of the rested James Ryan walking into the Aviva stands in a moon boot.

There was a scrum that struggled to find its feet and too many box kicks were detached from the chasing runners but Leinster had nine faces in the XV that hadn’t started the week before against Toulouse so some disconnect was understandable.

The Heineken final against La Rochelle lies just two weekends down the road so further switches are inevitable this weekend as front-line players are rested in parts and run in others to avoid rust.

“The only difference was that when we were going into this game we didn’t know whether there was going to be a next week,” said Cullen. “We didn’t actually spend a huge amount of time talking about it. We said let’s see how we get on this week and that’s the thing.

“There’s players that were unlucky to miss out this week who we were pretty keen to involve in some capacity at some stage so, yeah, they’re just chomping at the bit ready to go. So hopefully those guys will feature. We’ll see about the rest of them but there’ll be a few changes for sure.” 

Leinster have long been comfortable with reaching down into their depth chart for players when it comes to the league playoffs. Harry Byrne and Michael Milne were starting a knockout game for the first time on Saturday.

It’s a first-world problem: trying to blood less experienced players, give more established stars a break and all the while do enough on any given weekend to keep the team pointed in the direction of trophies on two separate fronts.

Cullen spoke of the “sick feeling” that came with missing out on both the URC and the Champions Cup titles last term but showed a sense of perspective in touching on the travel and injury issues that the Sharks had to contend with for this quarter-final.

Munster have their own injury concerns after their last eight defeat of Glasgow Warriors two evenings ago.

“Munster… because they weren’t featuring last week (in the Champions Cup), that’s their sole focus and that makes that very dangerous because teams can get a bit distracted if your eyes are on two different things. Whatever group plays for us next week we just need to be fully focused on that task.” 

The question remains as to just how much better Leinster actually are compared to the previous four seasons when they looked so good for such long periods and then fell to Saracens or La Rochelle. Or, in the URC 12 months ago, the Bulls.

Toulouse and Sharks have been put to the sword this last two weeks but Leinster have landed most of their blows in periods when the opposition has been down to 14 men. They are 49-0 in that combined 40 minutes and 27-apiece for the other 120.

A sign of ruthlessness, or confirmation that more needs to be done?

“It’s always work to do, for sure,” said Cullen. “but it is just about getting through to the next round so… The game was disjointed (against the Sharks), it was a little bit disjointed in the last 20 the last day as well.

“Again, the conditions – rain, showers – play a part in all that as well. You just have to be very disciplined. What was the score when we had a man in the bin against Leicester Tigers?” They ‘won’ the period 10-0 while Caelan Doris was sinbinned.

“So we actually came out on top in that period. The game is so dynamic and fluid. There was a cleanout at the end there when the Sharks lose a guy to the bin and they get a try chalked off, we go up the other end and score one shortly after. You just have to deal with those moments in the game.” 

Leinster: H Keenan; J Larmour, C Frawley, C Ngatai, D Kearney; H Byrne, L McGrath; M Milne, D Sheehan, T Furlong; R Baird, J Jenkins; M Deegan, S Penny, C Doris.

Replacements: J Conan for Penny (HIA, 37); C Healy for Furlong (HT); L Turner for Larmour (55); A Porter for Milne and R Byrne for Ngatai (both 58); J McKee for Sheehan (59); J Gibson-Park for McGrath and J McCarthy for Doris (both 69); M Milne for Healy (79).

Cell C Sharks: A Fassi; M Potgieter, L Am, B Tapuai, M Mapimpi; B Chamberlain, G Williams; O Nche, B Mbonambi, T Du Toit; C Rahl, G Grobler; J Venter, V Tshituka, S Notshe.

Replacements: C Sadie for Du Toit (26); RJ van Rensburg for Tapuai (57); P Buthelezi for Notshe and N Fleurs for Chamberlain (both 58); N Mchunu for Nche and F Mbatha for Mbonambi (both 61); J Labuschagne for Grobler (69); C Wright for Potgieter (73).

Referee: C Evans (WRU).