'Who are the players we could go after? The Barretts. Let's go after all three of them'

"That’s the way it sort of started,” explained Leo Cullen ahead of Saturday’s URC tie at home to Ulster.

Head Coach Leo Cullen during a training session. Pic: ©INPHO/Nick Elliott.

Leo Cullen has explained how all three of New Zealand’s Barrett brothers were among their targets when the idea of signing world-class talent on short-term sabbatical contracts first dawned as a possibility.

Jordie Barrett has proven to be a sensation for the province since arriving after the November Test window. His Kiwi teammate Rieko Ioane will join on a similar deal next December, by which time Barrett will be back in New Zealand.

“It was simply, ‘sabbatical, could we make this work?’ Then it was, ’who are the players we could go after? The Barretts! Let’s go after all three of them!’ That’s the way it sort of started,” explained Cullen ahead of Saturday’s URC tie at home to Ulster.

“’What about the three Barretts? They used to come from Meath. They spent time living in Ireland. ‘Then it’s a case of, ‘what is the contractual situation of those three brothers?’ That’s how it started.”

News that Ioane was due in Dublin next term broke this week, the morning after IRFU confirmation that changes to the centrally contracted system would see the provinces stump up 40% of that outlay going forward. An increase of 10% on the current arrangement.

It’s less than a year since that 30% stipulation was introduced, which means that Leinster could be forking out in and around €2m per year as of next season for centrally contracted players that hadn’t come out of their budget up to May of 2024.

Cullen, head coach with the province, declared that Leinster will simply work with the system available. 

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” he explained. And he was keen to puncture some narratives about the province’s financial sources while at it.

“If there is less funds to work with, we’ll just get on with it and that’s the way we look at it. And that’s why we’ll always harp on [about] the importance of our support base at Leinster because we need people to come through the turnstiles.

“They provide revenue for the team and the club to be able to invest as much as we can because there is no wealthy benefactor in Leinster, contrary to what the beliefs are maybe outside. We have, what we have.

“Sponsors and fans are producing the majority of the revenue. Then there is the relationship with the union, it’s the way the system works. It’s complex relationships in all the different departments but we try to make it work as best as we can.”

This, he continued, is why seedings and knockout games are so important. One crowd of 55,000 at Croke Park – more or less the crowd for their recent tie there against Harlequins – is the difference between signing a foreign player and not.

And Leinster attracted 82,300 to GAA HQ for a Champions Cup semi-final last season.

Barrett will play no part in this URC game at home to Ulster. Neither will their other high-profile imports with RG Snyman and Rabah Slimai joining eight rested Ireland internationals on the sideline. Jack Conan, Ryan Baird and James Ryan are among the injured.

As for Ioane, his imminent arrival in Dublin will be watched with interest given his spat with Johnny Sexton arising from their heated exchange at the end of the World Cup quarter-final in Paris in 2023 and their public back-and-forth on it since.

Cullen was able to laugh at the suggestion that the Blues player would be pitching up in Dublin as a form of panto villain and a man who might need to mend some fences with some of Sexton’s erstwhile teammates in the Leinster dressing-room.

“Sledging is part of the game and there was more made of it than it actually is,” said the former second row. “I used to get sledged as a player, but I didn’t take it personally.

“I used to get called all sorts of awful things! That’s just part and parcel. Training yesterday was pretty competitive, but there’s a kiss and make up part to it as well and we all move on.” For Cullen, the capture of players like Ioane brings only upside.

He rummaged back in time, to 2012, when Brad Thorn arrived in March for a three-month contract. The Kiwi was, like him, a lock but Cullen shrugged off the idea that he might be put out by the deal and welcomed the chance to play with, and learn off, the veteran.

Players who played with Thorn during that brief interlude waxed lyrical about his influence off the field and on for years afterwards. As they did with people like Isa Nacewa and the same goes for players like Doug Howlett in Munster and Ruan Pienaar in Ulster.

Cullen made the case for the benefits that accrue from these signings for the entire organisation. Far from blocking pathways for younger Irish players, he pointed to the intangible benefits to the next generation of working with world-class imports.

“How many cards do we get to play, like? Even when we get the opportunity to bring in a coach it’s ‘let’s get the best person we can’. Whether that person is sitting next door or on the other side of the world, let's try and make that work.

“We also understand that we have a remit which is to get players playing for Leinster and for Ireland and that’s something that we take seriously as well. We want to make sure that we expose the players to as much as we can to make them a world-class player for Leinster.

“If they’re a world-class player for Leinster then they’re probably going to get picked for Ireland as well. So we need to do everything we can to make that happen. Casper Gabriel is out of school and was away in South Africa and having regular conversations with Jordie.

“That’s outside of coaching. Players will generally listen to players. Coaches are parents or teachers versus that peer-to-peer thing, which can be more powerful, particularly with someone they respect from the top-end of the game.”