Leinster aiming to 'reset' in bid to claim first URC title

Leinster face Scarlets in the URC quarter-finals on Saturday. The Welsh side defeated a third string Leinster side just over a month ago. Pic: Chris Fairweather/Sportsfile

There is a stripped-back simplicity about the month for Leinster. The Champions Cup final, decided without their input for the first time since 2021, is behind us. The URC regular season has given way to the playoffs. The Lions, squad announced, has been put on ice.

There are no other detours or subplots for the province now, just the opportunity of three successive home ties, starting with Saturday’s quarter-final against the Scarlets and, they hope, culminating with a first URC title in the same Aviva Stadium a fortnight later.

“It’s got to be something of a reset because the last game against Glasgow, the rules were slightly different where you got points for scoring five points or whatever, or finishing within a certain amount, but they’re gone now,” said scrum coach Robin McBryde.

“This is knockout rugby, the stakes are a little bit higher and if we’re good enough to win this week we’ll get an opportunity to play next week, and if we’re good enough the following week we’ll get to play again.” It really is that simple. Or should be.

Talk of a reset makes sense given the pain endured in that Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton Saints earlier this month. The imponderable is whether that day has left any scars deep and debilitating enough to undo Leinster in the short term.

The very act of watching, or avoiding, last weekend’s decider between the Saints and Bordeaux-Begles will have reinforced the sense of loss and disappointment, even if McBryde, for one, was able to park himself in front of the box and drink it all in.

“Normally when I watch a game of rugby, I watch it through a coach’s eyes because of all the analysis work that you do. Sometimes you find it quite hard to switch off without being drawn into the front row or whatever.

“But for whatever reason on Saturday I was able to watch it just as a rugby supporter. I just thought it was a great occasion. I know the stadium lends itself… With the roof closed it was a great atmosphere etc.

“The nature of the game, there was a lot of ebb and flow, there were quite a few mistakes from both teams really but then Bordeaux were just able to close them out at the end. But I was able to watch it.”

Leinster have lost all three league semi-finals since the PRO14 morphed into the URC but their record in the last eight round has been impeccable with Ulster, Sharks and Glasgow routed by a combined score of 154-39, all of them played in Dublin.

It’s just over a month since Scarlets upset a third-string Leinster side in Wales but nothing similar is mappable now, even with Robbie Henshaw confirmed as sidelined for the rest of the club season with a knee problem and Tadhg Furlong out with a minor calf injury.

That latter, it must be stressed, is not the same calf that kept the Ireland tighthead on the treatment table for such long spells this season. His British and Irish Lions tour place is not in any way in jeopardy as a result of the issue, according to Leinster.

And as for Scarlets? Well, Leinster have often been the boy who called wolf before games like these but they are leaning on that 35-22 loss last month in Parc y Scarlets as justification for any cautious utterances ahead of the task to come.

“There was a lot in that game, but I am not going to take it away from the Scarlets,” said McBryde who spent over a decade playing with the Llanelli/Scarlets club. “They had a good game plan and stuck to it. They proved good value for [the win].

“Their consistency in selection, they hardly make any changes if any at all to the starting 15, the starting pack in particular. So they’re cohesive, a tough nut to crack. They’re comfortable with their game, the way they go about things.”