Leo Cullen content ahead of tricky Leinster spell
Leinster’s Hugo Keenan scores their third try
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said he was pleased with the way his side closed out their victory over the Lions with three tries in the final ten minutes nailing a try bonus point and a guaranteed quarter-final.
He said they will now need to push on against Ospreys next weekend and secure home advantage in the quarter-finals before turning their attention to the Champions Cup final against Bordeaux-Bègles the following weekend.
“I don't know how many competitions where you play a final of a Champions Cup, followed by a quarter-final the week after.
“You might be going from Bilbao to South Africa. How many competitions do you know would deliberately set it up like that? That's some of the complications that we're headed towards,” said Cullen.
But after conceding a couple of late tries in the Champions Cup semi-final the previous week and enduring a nervous finish against Toulon, Cullen was pleased with their strong finish this time as tries from Hugo Keenan, Rieko Ioane and Jimmy O’Brien wrapped up the win after they had led 14-7 at the break thanks to scores from Jamie Osborne and Thomas Clarkson.
“We're gearing up for knockout games at the end of the day, aren't we? But like, when the game was at 14-7, which it was for a good chunk of time, it was a proper arm wrestle of a game, wasn't it? I thought the lads stuck at it well,” said Cullen.
“We were pleased with the sort of strong defence during the period when the game was at 14-7 and very much in the balance.
“Lions were good at just keeping us pinned back in our end, clever the way they played, I thought, and that's why they were third in the table coming into this weekend.
“So it was good to get a couple of tries at the end, lots of good bits of play from some of the bench guys, which is what you want.
“Particularly off the back of last week, because here we go, we were 29-11 and got a bit helter-skelter in at the end, unnecessarily. Is some of that in our control, or is that just a quality opposition on the day, on their bench? So we would be critical of ourselves, very self-critical.
“But, listen, it's a win, it's five points, that's what you want. Lions don't get anything. As I said, they were ahead of us going into the weekend, so we're ahead of them now.
“We've Ospreys, and we'll see where everyone sits at the weekend. The top nine teams are incredibly tight, battling it out for the top eight places and seedings and the permutations of what that looks like and travel and all the rest,” added Cullen, who said he would change the team next weekend again having made a dozen changes for this one.
Tries: J Osborne, T Clarkson, H Keenan, R Ioane, J O’Brien. Cons: S Prendergast (2), C Frawley.
Try: F Horn. Con: C Smith.
C Frawley; A Osborne (H Cooney 70), R Ioane, J Osborne, J O’Brien; S Prendergast (H Keenan 62), L McGrath (F Gunne 75); E Byrne (A Porter 46), J McKee (D Sheehan 59), T Clarkson (R Slimani 46); B Deeny (S Penny 48), J Ryan (c); M Deegan, W Connors (D Mangan 19), J Culhane (Penny 16-26).
Q Horn; E Cronje, H van Wyk, R Kriel, A Davids (K Mpeku 67); C Smith, M van den Berg (N Steyn 70); S J Kotze (E Davids 63), P J Botha (F Marais 62), A Ntlabakanye (S Lombard 63); E Oosthuizen (D Landsberg 46), R Nothnagel; S Mahashe (J C Pretorius 70), R Venter (B Hlekani 5), F Horn (c).
H Davidson (Scotland).
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