Sheehan ready to ‘rip’ into Champions Cup bid after Boks disappointment
Dan Sheehan practises his kicking during a Leinster squad training session at UCD. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
It’s closing in on six months now since Dan Sheehan last started a game for Leinster. His one appearance in that time was a run off the bench in the Croke Park defeat to Munster back in October, so the chance to wear blue again is equally overdue and welcome.
Truth be told, the change is probably as good as the week-long rest he was afforded after the closure of the November Test window, and in the wake of Ireland’s comprehensive, odd and possibly epochal loss to the Springboks in the Aviva Stadium.
“Yeah, I suppose it was a mix. I’m always disappointed to lose in an Irish jersey. It was a bit weird after the South African game. Some people were complimenting the effort and stuff, but it's hard to get over the disappointment of losing.”
He had full confidence in the team’s ability to take down the world champions last month but the manner of the loss, the indiscipline and the demolition of a scrum backboned by so many Leinster players means this week isn’t a completely fresh start.
Seven of the starting forwards against the Springboks were Leinster players. Three of the pack replacements were sourced from the same spring. Sheehan was one third of a British and Irish front row utterly demolished by their counterparts.
It’s not hard to envisage a Top 14 pack looking at that tape and licking their lips.
“It wouldn't worry me in the slightest,” said Sheehan. “I think we have a powerful scrum at Leinster. The scrummaging performance we put in against Munster before we left showed the quality we have in the group. Sometimes you just get it wrong and that's what happens in Test Rugby especially.
“We'll be looking to use our scrum as a weapon now over the next couple of weeks. We don't sort of feel like we need to hide behind it at all, or come up with solutions to deal with it. We need to just bounce back and use it as a weapon again and attack it. Just dust yourself off and get on with it is the sort of mindset. That wouldn't worry me in the slightest.”
The Leinster to which they return hasn’t exactly been motoring either. Still just sixth in the URC table after a difficult start, Leo Cullen has already said that the contribution of so many players, like Sheehan, to the Lions last summer was always going to have an effect.
Even last Friday’s URC bonus-point win away to Dragons was a cause for concern given the 18 penalties and three yellow cards conceded by the province’s second-string. There is a sense that the season is still waiting to kick off in the capital.
That most of the Lions tourists are back in harness now, at the start of an uninterrupted ten-week, ten-game window, gives everyone the chance to get on the same page again and put in place the solid foundations needed for another dual-trophy bid.
Meetings with Harlequins (this Saturday), Leicester Tigers, La Rochelle and Bayonne await them in Pool 3 this month and next but the only arbiter of Leinster’s success or otherwise every season is whether or not they have won another Champions Cup title.
Repeated close shaves since their last in 2018 have given rise to the impression of a squad and a club scarred by such frustrations even if Sheehan prefers to talk up the many good days experienced in that time and dismisses any talk of dread or negativity.
There is even a reprise of Joe McCarthy’s words from last June about a “sort of hatred” for Leinster and an embrace of that perceived status as they face up to a Quins team languishing in the lower reaches of the Prem table.
“It's brilliant. It’s sport. Get on with it. Just play. I love coming in here now, in a big week, backs against the wall, needing to prove a point.
“There's 23 other lads (sic) raring to go as well, to prove a point and stake a claim for our season. People are excited just to rip in. Everything in the past has happened. It's a new season, new group. Let's just rip.”
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Jacques Nienaber has already reiterated his commitment to Leinster for the duration of his contract in the wake of a TV interview given last month when he speculated on a possible return to South Africa and the Springboks at its end.
The question now, as another ‘European’ campaign gets underway, is what the former Bok coach and the rest of the Leinster brains trust and squad can do to end an Investec Champions Cup drought that has already stretched into its eighth season.
The province all but ripped up its blueprint when replacing Stuart Lancaster as senior coach with the now- 53-year old from Kimberley, opting for a heightened focus on a blitz defence over the Englishman’s attacking bent.
The end result has been much the same with the province – while claiming the URC last season - routinely racking up big wins for much of the last two seasons but failing to do what was required to earn that fifth star come April or May.
“I only heard the noise around it [Monday] morning, but he's bouncing into work, and he's all focused on us,” said Dan Sheehan. "He's been absolutely brilliant since he's been here. And the energy he brings, the detail he brings, the motivation he brings...
“I can't fault him. He's been absolutely brilliant for us, a nice change, coming with a completely new system and it's been working for us. When we get it right it feels really good. Everyone in the changing-rooms are all behind him. People are happy.”
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