Rónan Kelleher and Leinster determined to go full bore for URC run-in

The Ireland hooker is looking forward to a Lions tour this summer.

Fri, 30 May, 2025 - 07:20

Brendan O'Brien

Rónan Kelleher didn’t watch all of last Saturday’s Champions Cup final between Bordeaux-Begles and Northampton Saints. The bit he did take in was more than enough to stir understandable pangs of regret.

“You naturally are thinking when you’re watching it, ‘it could have been us’, but this year wasn’t to be. Nothing we can do about it now, just focus on something that we can control, which is [the URC] and we’ll focus on next year, next year.”

It’s already four weeks since Leinster let slip another golden opportunity to claim a fifth star by losing that semi-final to the Saints at the Aviva Stadium. Would they have beaten Bordeaux in Cardiff? We’ll never know, and that should hurt too.

If there was the sliver of a silver lining then it was in the fact that a former Leinster man got a winner’s medal, even if Joey Carbery didn’t feature on the day. And there was the input of another former Leinster employee in Noel McNamara.

Now attack coach with Bordeaux, McNamara held a handful of different development roles at Leinster and he was a highly-rated Ireland U20s head coach when Kelleher was progressing through that portion of the national system.

“A legend. He has obviously done a great job, he’s a great fella. I’m happy for him. As disappointed as I am it wasn’t us, you’re glad when it is one of your own gets a chance.

“I’m absolutely delighted for Noel and he has done a fantastic job, even going off to the Sharks before that. He did a great job with them as well. He’s brilliant.”

Kelleher’s own frustrations were salved in part only five days after that Northampton loss when he was one of a dozen Leinster players, including housemate Hugo Keenan, to be selected for the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia.

This will be his second summer in red.

Four years ago he didn’t make Warren Gatland’s initial squad only to be called-up as a fourth, back-up hooker shortly after scoring four tries for Ireland against the USA in what was just his 12th Test cap.

He arrived in South Africa the week of the first Test against the Springboks. This will be very different, as he beds in with the other 37 travellers from the off for a tour that won’t be pared back and denuded of its usual colour by a pandemic.

Kelleher has already checked in with the Lions for a get-to-know-you operational day in London two Sundays ago when they mingled with staff and fellow players and got to share the odd coffee and beer. Very different to 2021.

“Absolutely. There were no fans [then], so it was a very different tour. That kind of had its pros and cons. A pro was probably that you got to know everyone pretty well because you kind of had to. You were in each other’s space 24/7.

“I was out there for, whatever it was, four weeks plus the Jersey training camp. In that regard it was good because you got to know everyone, but it wasn’t really touring. From the chat we had over in London that time, it’s going to be an unbelievable experience.

“The way people who have talked to us, who have been on that previous Lions tour, have said it has been brilliant, some of the highlights of their lives. Please God, all going well, it will be a good tour.”

But forget the Lions and the Champions Cup for now.

Leinster’s ongoing failure to convert their raw materials and resources into trophies this past three seasons had already been an issue before the Saints defeat at the start of this month. Fail to win a first URC title and the klaxons will be blaring.

That the URC is the less shiny of the two baubles available is undeniable but three successive semi-final league defeats have added considerably to the sense of a team saddled with a mental brittleness. They need to change that.

“Each year our goal is to win both. We put big emphasis on both. There has always been a massive focus. If there wasn’t, it’d be doing a disservice to the lads who put in a big shift all year, who maybe aren’t playing the European games and stuff like that.

“So it’s absolutely massive for us as a group, as a whole, and also to give everyone a chance of lifting silverware, but probably most importantly the lads that are moving on and the lads who have gotten you to this point.”