Leo Cullen emphatic that he is still the man to lead Leinster

STILL THE MAN? Leinster head coach Leo Cullen after the Investec Champions Cup final match between Leinster and Union Bordeaux Bégles. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Leo Cullen is adamant that he is still the man to lead Leinster back to club rugby’s summit.

A 22-point defeat to Bordeaux-Begles in Bilbao last weekend was the province’s fifth shortfall in as many deciders since their last successful campaign in 2018. Add in the comprehensive nature of it and rumblings were inevitable.

Cullen has been at the helm since 2015 and needed a URC title last June to bring four years of drought to an end. 

They will look to retain that crown in the coming weeks, starting with a quarter-final at home to the Lions this Saturday.

The top man’s role has come in for major scrutiny long before the Basque disappointment. 

Contracted through to the summer of 2027, he leapt on the opportunity to emphasise his intentions when asked if he still has the same energy for the role.

“Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I 100pc believe that. Just to put it on the record. Absolutely. And yeah, it's difficult to deal with some of these days, for sure, because there's the weight of that expectation. In many ways, it's the win or bust mentality, isn't it?

“We do everything we can. So we know if we don't win the Champions Cup there is a bust mentality. And we're getting there [to the finals]. We're getting there year after year after year. Listen, there's lots of things that we will do a real deep dive on.” 

Cullen regularly makes the point that Leinster’s ability to reach so many finals is an achievement in itself. It’s a refrain that can strike a discordant chord but he added context by pondering when was the last time another URC side had made the last round.

The answer to that is Ulster in 2012. When it was still the Heineken Cup.

France has provided the last half-dozen winners now and Cullen’s suspicion is that the depth of competition and speed of play in the Top 14 may be giving their best an advantage when it comes to the pointy end in Europe.

“The French teams, as a competition, they're jostling. So are they playing at a slightly better thing? So, if they are, how do we replicate that? Do we do that from a training point of view? Or what does that look like?” 

Planning for next season is already underway, he explained, and he added that conversations on possible NIQ (non-Irish qualified) signings are not yet done and dusted. To date, no such new arrivals have been announced and two are leaving.

“So for me to walk away from this, that's not going to make this better. As in, I will be fully committed as we finish this season into next season and we'll go steaming into it again, like we try to every single year.” 

Leinster have tried to add that fifth star in very different ways. Stuart Lancaster’s and Jacques Nienaber’s, basically. 

Now Cullen is at a point where he is happy to put everything on the table. A root and branch inspection into everything they do and why.

He zeroed in on the speed of the game Bordeaux and the other top French sides play after Saturday’s defeat and returned to that theme here. Do they train faster, with more intensity but in shorter bursts? Maybe.

The fear is that Leinster – and the rest of the URC and sides in the Premiership – are being left behind by the Top 14’s finest but Cullen struck a defiant note in stressing the potential that remains in the province.

The Nienaber approach will be part of this reappraisal but Cullen was keen to reframe the discussion around the South African’s blitz defence and whether it was compatible with Leinster’s attacking DNA. A mindset shift, he said, is needed among fans.

“We want to be attacking both sides of the ball. When we attack, we still want to play a brand of rugby that... Leinster fans love seeing us with the ball when we have possession. I just see it as attacking, whether we have the ball or not.

"So I wanted to bring a defensive system here that sees us attacking the opposition when they have the ball. That's the way I would see it. I wouldn't see it as a defensive team. I just see it as a very aggressive attacking team, both sides of the ball.” 

Leinster players have described this Champions Cup chase as an obsession. 

It may be that another mindset shift is needed in that, but the head coach echoed the importance placed on it by describing the latest loss as “horrific” and the aftermath as a grieving process.

Whatever the next steps, he’ll be the one taking and shaping them.

“I'm as consumed by it as I ever have been. It is consuming, but I love doing it. When you have days like you had at the weekend, it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. But that's when you show what you're made of. Get up and let's go again.”