Leinster out to 'right a few wrongs' against Bulls

Leo Cullen's side are looking to kickstart their season in Pretoria.

Thomas Clarkson during Leinster Rugby squad training in Pretoria. Pic: INPHO/Steve Haag

Accepted wisdom has it that the opening weekends of the URC season can serve as a sort of buffet for the average rugby fan who might pick and choose at the fare on offer after a summer sated by the feast of Test rugby and looking ahead to finer fare again.

Leinster’s visit to Pretoria to take on the Bulls, a meeting of league champions and the side they beat in a Croke Park final back in June, was always going to be one of the more choice cuts on offer. Events last week have just added extra sauce.

Losing to the Stormers in Cape Town on opening weekend was no shock. Losing 35-0 was. Leinster were awful in pretty much every department, their absence of frontline players balanced out by a similar paucity of Springboks on view.

Logic would have it that the Bulls will be raring to have a run at the Irish province just over three months on from their spurned ambitions, but Leinster pitch up eager to atone for last week’s failings and with their last visit to Pretoria fresh in their minds too.

Leo Cullen’s side was last in town back in March and with an unbeaten 16-game season to their credit. A 17th win was very much on the cards until the 84th-minute when David Kriel kicked a penalty to give the hosts a one-point win.

“They’ll be highly motivated from that final,” said Jimmy O’Brien. “They’ll want to try and get one over on us after last year, but that was a pretty devastating loss [for Leinster] last year. I was, probably not as bad as I was feeling last Friday night, but pretty close.

“We put so much into that league game last year down here and to get pipped right at the end was pretty gut wrenching. There’s a lot of lads who are down here now who were involved in that game. We’re also trying to right a few wrongs from that game.” 

Cullen has made seven changes to the team that started that awful loss to the Stormers for this follow-up and Thomas Clarkson, one of the club’s 14 British and Irish Lions in Australia this summer, is one of the new additions.

It is still very much a mix of experienced pros and up-and-coming potential with Clarkson one-third of a front row that will see Paddy McCarthy make his first start and just an eighth appearance for the province.

The switch of Ryan Baird to second row is no surprise given the issues at lineout in Cape Town where an inexperienced pairing of Brian Deeny and Diarmuid Mangan found the going tough, and there is a rejigged back row to boot.

Robbie Henshaw is another to migrate as he moves in from 13 to inside-centre and Leinster have gone for a 6-2 split against a side that won its opener against the Ospreys but is reeling under the weight of an enormous injury list.

Backs Jan Serfontein and Cheswill Jooste are both out with injuries suffered against the Welsh region, so is flanker Cobus Wiese following a head knock, and there another 13 players currently unavailable with various issues.

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann, who took over from Jake White in the off-season, has warned that his side needs to tighten up on opportunities offered to the Ospreys while predicting that the off-colour Leinster side seen last week won’t be seen again.

“You know, we haven't become a bad, that bad, a team overnight anyway,” said Leinster forwards coach Robin McBryde. “We've just got to make sure that we show that on Saturday. It's all well and good saying it, but we've got to actually show it.” 

Vodacom Bulls: D Williams, S de Klerk, D Kriel, H Vorster, S Jacobs, K Johannes, E Papier, G Steenekamp, J Grobbelaar, M Smith, N Janse van Rensburg, JF van Heerden, M Coetzee, M Gumede, JJ Theron Leinster Rugby: J O’Brien; T O’Brien, H Cooney, R Henshaw, A Osborne; S Prendergast, L McGrath; P McCarthy, G McCarthy, T Clarkson; B Deeny, R Baird; A Soroka, W Connors, M Deegan.

Referee: A Jones (WRU).