Leinster's Jacques Nienaber: There is no magic formula to get the team to win

Nienaber’s “gut” instinct when Caelan Doris came off after 57 minutes of Leinster Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton was not good. The backrow's Lions tour is in serious jeopardy. 

“Nothing I say will justify the decisions we made because the outcome didn’t go our way," said Leinster defence coach Jacques Nienaber. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Honan

Bank Holiday Monday in Leinster HQ and the place is like a morgue. The wider UCD campus is devoid of life, the car parks are mostly empty. There is no-one on reception in the club’s high-performance centre and the offices are quiet.

The place feels apt after the shock Champions Cup semi-final loss to Northampton Saints. Caelan Doris’ worrying injury news only adds to the gloom just days before the British and Irish Lions announce their squad.

Jacques Nienaber is up for media. It’s hard to think of a more fitting man to speak with. The Leinster senior coach used to be a physio, after all, and he is the defensive guru brought in to stiffen the province to the job of winning that elusive fifth star.

Doris first.

Nienaber’s “gut” instinct when the captain came off after 57 minutes of such a seismic game was not good. This is someone he considers a “hard man”. Sure enough, his shoulder goes under the knife this week. His Lions tour is in huge doubt.

“Hopefully they go in and, fingers crossed, there is not too much structural damage. If there is not too much structural damage – it is tough to say, my physio knowledge is a little bit woozy – but I would say that can be anything between 4-8 weeks.

“If there is structural damage it can go more than that, between four and six months,” said Nienaber who admitted that shoulders can be a tricky injury. “So it depends on what they find when they go in and have a look at it.” That’s the pre-op. Now for the post-mortem.

How does a team that kept two clean sheets against dangerous attacking sides in Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors in the previous rounds concede five tries and 37 points at home to an opponent sitting seventh in the Premiership?

Collective responsibility is emphasised, but it is put to him that ‘D’ is his baby. Nienaber was brought to Dublin specifically to install the blitz defence that won the Springboks two World Cups. The club’s DNA was effectively rewritten to facilitate it.

“If you look at the potential of the squad defensively and then look at the performance, we didn’t deliver on that potential, defensively,” said the South African. “What is our potential in defence? It’s a lot better than the one that we did deliver.” 

Leo Cullen said on Saturday that there would be some “head scratching” over their mentality in defence, and questions to be asked as to whether they were “really clued-in enough” to the threats posed by the Saints. Those are big statements.

Nienaber, rightly, was keen to praise the opposition for their efforts but was this a technical, tactical, mental, physical malfunction? Where did it go so wrong and so quickly? It isn’t just one of the above, he said. Moreso a pinch of each.

“That’s the beauty of rugby. It’s isn’t silos. You can’t go it’s just mental, or just physical.” There would have been much greater clarity in the team review held earlier in the day, but the answers offered up for public consumption were long and, though not without base or interest, largely equivocal.

Team selection? Well, Leinster ‘won’ the second-half 19-10 against a Northampton side that finished so strongly against them in last year’s semi-final. Jordie Barrett on the bench? Didn’t Leinster have four other internationals available for those two midfield spots?

The decisions to ignore two pots at the posts in the closing minutes when three points offered the chance of extra-time? They trusted the players and, anyway, who is to say that the Saints wouldn’t go down the other end and claim three points of their own?

“Nothing I say will justify the decisions we made because the outcome didn’t go our way.” But why do Leinster keep losing these big games?

Nienaber’s Boks made a habit of edging tight calls. Their three knockouts at the last World Cup were all won by a single point, but then he reminds you of 2021 when they lost five of 13 games, four of them by five points or less, and a few when leading into the last minute.

“Knockouts are going to be [won] in the last 10 minutes. It is going to be a one-score game. You must try and get over the line but is there a magic formula, a magic mental conversation you have with the team beforehand to get them to win? No there is not, unfortunately.”