Dan Sheehan: 'We have been good this year at making sure we’re not getting ahead of ourselves'

CROKE PARK RETURN: Dan Sheehan is looking forward to playing in front of a sold out Croke Park but not getting carried away by the occasion.  Pic:Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

There is no shortage of Leinster players, coaches and other employees with roots that run through GAA soil, but you wouldn’t have guessed that on the basis of their media day before the club's return to Croke Park this weekend.

One, Robin McBryde, was a Welshman. Ross Byrne did play football with Kilmacud Crokes for a few years but it was more a fling than a full-on love affair. And Dan Sheehan’s slim personal history is, if anything, on a par with McBryde’s.

The one game of Gaelic Sheehan played was with Clongowes Wood. It may have been against Athy, he's not sure, but even that was played on a rugby pitch. As for the famous Leinster-Munster game on Jones’ Road in 2009? It wasn’t exactly big in his part of the world at the time.

“No, I was in Bucharest, Romania.” 

The Sheehans spent three years living in the Eastern European city but he isn’t oblivious to the charms and the significance of playing at an iconic venue that will be hosting Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton Saints.

“It is huge for the club. It is hugely exciting for us to go to such a special place like that, where rugby hasn’t been played for a while, to have it sold out with 82,000 people. It is going to be immense.

“We can't really get carried away. We talked about how a crowd will only come alive on the back of a performance and we can't rely on a performance just coming on the back of 82,000 people showing up.” 

There is a balance to be struck between the energy that will come from the crowd and the occasion and the need to avoid being consumed by it. Then again these are mental gymnastics that elite players perform often.

Go back to the quarter-final against La Rochelle and consider the hype around the build-up, the rivalry and history between the two clubs. It felt like so much more than a last eight tie and Leinster delivered a performance to match.

Leo Cullen didn’t demur when it was put to him after that a three-week wait until this semi-final might be a good thing given that pre-match buzz and the levels needed to come through it. If it felt like a final then it can’t go down as one.

Toulouse, like Leinster in Dublin, are highly-fancied to come through their semi-final on Sunday and that brings its own dangers for the province as they look to focus on a dangerous Saints side that has already won in Ireland this season when accounting for Munster.

“We didn't talk any further than that La Rochelle game,” said Sheehan. “We beat them. Everything was put into that, then we quickly turned the page to Northampton. That was by no means our final but it was a must-win to get to the next stage.

“We have been good this year at making sure we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We have in the past where we have come up short, probably looking too far ahead or maybe getting too complacent in either URC or Champions Cup, so it's important.” 

A first URC title in four seasons is still within their grasp but Leinster’s priorities were evident when they sent a scratch side to South Africa for a tour that produced two league defeats while their first-string stayed home to prep for Northampton.

Those tour losses brought to an end a five-game winning streak since the end of the Six Nations. Leinster have been impressive, though not perfect, in the big games with Leicester Tigers, Stormers and La Rochelle all dealt with comfortably.

There was a slight concern that Andy Farrell’s Ireland ran out of some steam even in the act of retaining that Six Nations title but Sheehan’s distaste for that particular theory is backed up by the vigour and level of performances in the weeks since.

“That's the first I've heard of it. Completely wrong read. It's natural that this part of the season bodies aren't 100%. You gotta front up, you gotta play with niggles, but as a professional player in the Leinster and Irish squad this is the most exciting part of the season.

“You have to bring everything more, energy-wise, in your [training] weeks and in your performances. We've come up short how many times the last couple of years and we know what it means to this club, this competition.

“So we're in a really good place. The energy levels are good. That was a big part of us not travelling to South Africa, to make sure the energy levels were there. Everyone's excited to get going now in the last few weeks of the season.”