Leo Cullen: Leinster are not at Toulouse's level right now

“The dressing room is frustrated at how we performed today because we want to put on a better show in front of our home fans," says Blues supremo

CLOSE EYE: Leinster head coach Leo Cullen looks on as Jordie Barrett practices his goalkicking before the Champions Cup Pool 2 match between Leinster and ASM Clermont Auvergne at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Leo Cullen admits that Leinster are not currently playing at the same level of a Toulouse side that edged them to the Champions Cup title last season.

The two old rivals, along with the likes of La Rochelle and Bordeaux-Begles, are high on the list of favourites to claim the title in Cardiff next year with the holders starting their defence last week with a 61-21 demolition job on Ulster.

Leinster put together an impressive 40 minutes after the break in Bristol the same weekend to claim an away bonus-point win but the first period had been scrappy and it was the same again on Saturday night as they pulled through against Clermont Auvergne.

There was no bonus-point four tries for the four-time champions at the Aviva Stadium with the French visitors sticking with them throughout and a litany of lost lineouts among the issues to be addressed by the Irish province.

“A win, isn’t it? When you see these two fixtures at the start, and where they’re positioned, after the four Test matches, if someone said you were going to get nine points from the two games, you’d probably be quite happy," Cullen said afterwards.

“But when you score two tries in the first half of the second game having got five points last week, it sort of feels like there are things there that we can be better at.

“The dressing room is frustrated at how we performed today because we want to put on a better show in front of our home fans but at the same time, you’ve got to win against a team that is used to these sort of arm-wrestles in the Top 14, where they’re currently sitting third. They’ve ton of experience.

“It’s good to get a win. The conditions deteriorated in the second half and it became quite difficult to play but at the same time, there’s lots of things that we can be better at, so it’s pretty mixed, I’d have to say.” 

Cullen pointed to the abilities of Christophe Urios’ team on the defensive side of the lineouts as one of the reasons for his own team’s issues out of touch, stating that they didn’t “see some of the pictures” and “got rattled” when some went awry.

The Leinster head coach also touched on the fact that so many of Leinster’s players had to turn into these two Champions Cup games on the back of a four-game tour of duty with the national team for the November Tests.

“It's something we need to be conscious of," he added. "I'm not trying to make excuses at all but there is a lot more in us and, if we want to be successful and go on in this competition, we are not at the level of probably where, as an example… I watched Toulouse last week where they are. They are in unbelievable form at the moment so we've plenty to work on.” 

 There is no panic with any of this. Cullen talked up the experience in the dressing-room and their ability to iron out the kinks. He was happy too to hear compliments for the side’s scrum performance after the break and mindful of the fact that D-Day is a long way off yet.

“We're still searching for a consistent performance. I'm not sure we'll ever get the perfect one, but we're certainly a long way off perfect. But a bit more consistency across the board, we're still searching for that.”