Latest La Rochelle chapter an intriguing test of Leinster's Blue Boks

ELITE DEFENDER: Garry Ringrose of Leinster during the United Rugby Championship match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Parkk. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

The conversation around Leinster as they renew their very modern rivalry with La Rochelle this Sunday is of a side that has taken a huge evolutionary leap in the blink of an eye. Gone is the slick attacking force of yore. In its place, a more dour, physical and defensive lot.

So the story goes. Roundheads overcoming Cavaliers.

Life would be so much simpler if it stuck to these linear truths. Think back to Leinster’s 16-9 pool opening win against Ronan O’Gara’s side at a wind and rain-battered Stade Marcel Deflandre 13 months ago and the picture paints differently.

Jacques Nienaber was hardly a wet week in Dublin then, his second World Cup medal with South Africa only just minted. Leinster went there with the baggage of those two Champions Cup final losses, but they rolled up their sleeves and they edged an arm wrestle.

There wasn’t much beauty involved, but it was bloody effective.

Nienaber had already detailed the 14-week plan that would be needed to bed in his blitz defence at the club by then, and there is no doubt but that the province has leaned fully into the project. This is the new ‘Leinster Way’. The Blue Boks?

For now, maybe.

The perception is that their ball in hand work has suffered with this heightened defensive focus. Tyler Bleyendaal has already countered that line this week, and Garry Ringrose will argue that there is always an element of yin and yang about these twin demands.

“It’s always a little bit elusive,” said the Ireland centre. “Any given week, any given day you’re trying to get the balance right: when you have the ball, when you don’t, what will help you win the game. That’s kind of a constant.

“Even before, Jacques and Tyler are balancing that at the moment and Goody [Andrew Goodman] last year. Before that you had Stuart [Lancaster] who was attack and defence [coach] himself, which was pretty unique.

“Even he’d say on any given day trying to get the balance right… It’s what makes it exciting, I guess.” 

The numbers are interesting.

Leinster's Garry Ringrose. Pic: Andrew Conan/Inpho

Leinster have scored the exact same number of points, 310, after eleven games -nine URC and two Champions Cup - this season as was the case at this point last term. Their defensive figures for the same span? They have plummeted from 190 to 129.

That’s a very arbitrary scan, and it doesn’t account for strength of opposition, conditions or any other number of factors, but those raw statistics do seem to counter the argument that the team’s attacking threat has suffered.

“I wouldn’t use the word suffer,” said Ringrose. “It’s like a tug of war between the two and any given week Tyler wants his minutes for us and same with Jacques. They’re actually working unbelievably close. They’re almost meeting symbiotically.” 

The 29-year-old Ringrose is playing a key role in all of this.

Nobody had politely-spoken public schoolboy midfielders in mind when they talked about rugby’s enforcers down through the years and yet the Dubliner has come into his own as a lightning rod for both his province and his country on the defensive side of the ball.

Andy Farrell has highlighted him at times for the manner in which he has ‘set the tone’ for Ireland. That penchant for shooting out of the line to tackle ball carriers out wide and/or behind the gain line is stitched into the public’s psyche now.

He has paid the price at times, most obviously with two breaks of his jaw, the first in 2020 and again in 2023. When Ringrose talked about mindset this week he used phrases like “all-in” and expounded on the need not to overthink things.

“It’s interesting from the perspective of preparing to play against South Africa in the past and trying to understand what Jesse Kriel or (Lukhanyo) Am were doing and why. Talking to [Nienaber] and learning off him, it makes sense.

“I know 13 is said it is difficult to defend there, but a lot of it depends on what the guys around me are doing. It allows me to make reads or even the ones that maybe I’ve missed or definitely missed or any of us have missed, the wingers, the fullbacks kind of cover for that.” 

Clermont stood toe-to-toe with Leinster in the physical stakes when they met at the Aviva before Christmas. And La Rochelle will certainly relish that side of things at the weekend. Time will tell if this road is the right one for Leinster, but the Springbok influence is clear.