Leo Cullen: Munster loss leaves Leinster with no margin for error

Leinster's Head Coach Leo Cullen and Munster's Head Coach Clayton McMillan shake hands. Pic: Tom Maher/Inpho

Leo Cullen knew. Not that Leinster would be turned over so convincingly by Munster in Croke Park on Saturday, but he could see that the day would come when the compound effect of so many years being under the thumb would prompt a poke in the eye.

The Leinster head coach brought it all back to 2009 after this 31-14 defeat. To the epochal Heineken Cup semi-final in the very same ground and the performance and the win that turned this rivalry irrevocably in his province’s favour after years of subservience.

“I remember Munster were coming in and they were getting ready for their captain’s run. I was the only person here, as in Leinster person, but I remember the media. It was the derogatory tone that I was being addressed in. ‘What chance have you guys got?’” 

Munster were reigning champions and approaching that intepro on the back of what was a stunning destruction of a very, very good Ospreys side in the last eight in Limerick. Leinster had staggered over the line at The Stoop against Harlequins in the Bloodgate game.

Nobody was giving Leinster a chance, and they won by 19 points.

“So, at some point, people will stand up and go, ‘listen enough,’ you know what I mean? The squads are the same. It's 15 players in the field, you have eight bench and blah, blah, blah, blah, so it's on the day. Our guys just need to take it on the chin now and get better for the next time, because there's a lot more in us.

“It's not a fatal loss for us at the moment, is it? We’ve lost three league games. It's more than we lost in all the campaign last year, including the knockouts. So yeah, we've a hell of a lot of work to do. That's the mindset we just need to adopt, because what happened has happened. It's the next thing, and the group needs to know what they're made of.” 

To give Cullen his due, he had spoken about tight margins in this derby last week, before a ball had been kicked, and he reiterated that afterwards. The moment when, at 14-7, Ethan Coughlan ran in that intercept try was used to highlight just how the small margins can be.

Due applause was afforded to Munster for their heart and grit and determination against a Leinster side boasting 12 British and Irish Lions and 14 of the 21 players named last Wednesday in Andy Farrell’s upcoming Ireland squad.

Being outplayed is one thing, being outfought is another, but Cullen dismissed this as an overarching concern and preferred to paint it as a consequence of the squad’s disrupted start to the season on the back of all those Lions commitments and staggered starts.

And by stressing again Munster’s motivations.

“Listen, I know what it's like, missing out on national squads and having a bit of a chip on the shoulder, which you see with a lot of Munster guys [on Saturday], but it was good for our guys to see that. Not that they should have been surprised by it. They know it's coming, but isn't it still all those individual battles out there?

“And listen, Munster won a lot of individual battles, and you got to give them credit for it. So they're the victors, they're the ones who take the credit, and we just have to take the criticism, because that's the way professional sports top end works. I'll take the criticism, but it's a collective piece, isn't it? We all need to own it together.” 

Farrell will no doubt be glad that he is bringing his Ireland squad to Chicago on Tuesday, eleven days before they face the All Blacks at Soldier Field, because the evidence here suggests that they have a tonne of work to do to get up to speed in time.

Cullen’s concerns are more local, of course. Leinster won’t see their frontline players again now until early December and he scoffed at the idea of securing home advantage through the end-of-season playoffs on the back of one win in their first four games.

“It just means there's no margin for error later in the year. But maybe it's not a bad thing, because it keeps everyone focused. If you remember the tail end of last season, you're into that last block and people's minds, everyone goes, ‘Oh, you just need to turn up and win’. And that's not the way the game is.”