Nienaber understands value of La Rochelle's Cork sojourn

Leinster's senior coach Jacques Nienaber. Picture: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Jacques Nienaber knows better than most the value of La Rochelle’s residency in Cork this week.

Results in the Investec Champions Cup last weekend have leaned the reigning champions into a Dublin date against Nienaber’s Leinster next Saturday – and that on the back of their round of 16 win against the Stormers in Cape Town just four days ago.

It makes for a brutally difficult slog from one hemisphere to another and back again and Ronan O’Gara has looked to counter some of it by flying the squad from South Africa to his native Cork via Paris, arriving at the Fota Island Resort yesterday.

Nienaber spent enough years on the Springboks coaching staff, hopping from South Africa to Australia and Argentina for Rugby Championship fixtures, to know that every minute or hour shaved from a long-haul travel schedule can’t but help the cause.

The benefits aren’t just logistical.

“The second thing is the fact they’re not in France,” the Leinster senior coach explained, “they don’t have the pressure of their local media, almost like secluding the team, and they can just focus on the task at hand.

“The third thing is, having the team together in a hotel, obviously you can get connections a lot easier. If you want to quickly just discuss the lineout you can do ten minutes or 15 minutes after the dinner.” 

Nienaber omitted a fourth plus.

It’s hard not to imagine O’Gara drawing an extra sliver of energy from quartering his back-to-back Champions Cup winners in his home county, and in the heart of the province where he was born and spent the entirety of his playing career.

The coach declared himself to be “full of good emotions” after landing at Cork airport while Ultan Dillane, Tralee-born but a ‘Rochelais’ since the summer of 2022, uploaded a video of the squad on the team bus as the ‘Fields of Athenry’ played in the background.

Nienaber, who only arrived in Dublin in late November, pleaded ignorance to any suggestion that La Rochelle might mine an extra one or two per cent from O’Gara’s local links, but he is fully clued-in on other narratives when it comes to the upcoming quarter-final.

La Rochelle have beaten Leinster three times in ‘European’ knockout games in the last three seasons, once in a semi-final and twice in the decider. The theory goes that the province was bullied physically in the course of those meetings.

This is regardless of the fact that Leinster won at Stade Marcel Deflandre in December on a pig of a day that turned the game into an arm wrestle. Some beliefs are clearly harder to shift than Will Skelton or Uini Atonio, but Nienaber went at this one with raw numbers.

His source, again, was that experience on the Boks staff and, in particular, the World Cup pool game they played in Paris last autumn against an Irish side and squad that boasted so many current members of this Leinster collective.

“Ireland were the second biggest team at the World Cup if you look at weight. I think only Tonga were heavier. If you take the 33-man squad's weights and divide it by 33, Ireland was the biggest (sic). Ireland have the biggest backs in the world in rugby currently.

“So yes, there will be a narrative that [La Rochelle] are bigger, they are heavier, they are bigger bullies, but if you look at the reality and just look at the size of Irish players in the Irish national side compared to other national sides around the world, in the tier one nations there isn't a bigger, heavier side than Ireland.” 

Interest in this one is off the charts.

Leinster managed to sell just 27,000 tickets for their quarter-final at home to Leicester Tigers last year. As with next Saturday’s game, that came just a week after their round of 16 tie, but sales for this last eight tie were already approaching the 40,000 mark yesterday.

The hosts are waiting on news on four players – Garry Ringrose (shoulder), Jimmy O’Brien (neck), Cian Healy (leg) and Charlie Ngatai (calf) – and the early indications are that Ringrose will struggle to make this one again having sat out the Tigers win four days ago. That would be big.

Leo Cullen’s side is already operating right now and for the foreseeable without James Ryan in the second row. His departure with injury in last May’s final loss to the Top 14 side was deemed to be a major factor in the agonising one-point loss.

This one looks almost too close to call with Nienaber talking up an opponent replete with Test players. One that ‘understands its DNA’, boasts a strong setpiece, big ball carriers and “flashy players” that can sprinkle some gold dust out on the touchlines.

La Rochelle have pipped Leinster to two titles but they have fallen just short of a pair of Top 14 crowns themselves. Nienaber brings a different defensive approach to Leinster and a winning habit borne of two successive World Cups, the latter won with three one-point victories.

Both will harbour what he calls “expectancy pressure” come kick-off on Saturday.