Leo Cullen admitted that the overwhelming feeling was one of frustration as he reflected on Leinster’s 15-7 Champions Cup victory over Clermont Auvergne.
There were several aspects of the home side’s performance that were out of kilter, notably the lineout and some of the handling but the Irish province had enough in hand to stagger over the line.
“A win, isn’t it? When you see these two fixtures at the start, and where they’re positioned, after the four Test matches, if someone said you were going to get nine points from the two games, you’d probably be quite happy,” said Cullen. “But when you score two tries in the first half of the second game having got five points last week, it sort of feels like there are things there that we can be better at.
Is the Champions Cup on its last legs?
“The dressingroom is frustrated at how we performed today because we want to put on a better show in front of our home fans. But at the same time, you’ve got to win against a team that is used to these sort of arm-wrestles in the Top 14, where they’re currently sitting third.
“They’ve ton of experience. It’s good to get a win. The conditions deteriorated in the second half, and it became quite difficult to play, but at the same time, there’s lots of things that we can be better at, so it’s pretty mixed, I’d have to say.”
One aspect was the lineout. Leinster lost seven or eight depending on the count. Cullen said: “We didn’t see some of the pictures and then we got rattled, a couple of throws went awry and a combination of lots of different things and then suddenly you are losing seven lineouts or whatever it was.
“That sort of creeps into the rest of our game. Going back to guys coming back from international Tests, there’s a big effort to get up to speed for Bristol, then there’s a short week and you don’t quite get to the emotional level we had last week.
“It’s something we need to be conscious of. I’m not trying to make excuses at all but there’s is a lot more in us and if we want to be successful and go on in this competition. We are not at the level of probably where, as an example, I watched Toulouse last week, where they are. They are in unbelievable form at the moment so we’ve plenty to work on.”
That starts with a URC game against Connacht next Saturday at the Aviva Stadium. Liam Turner (ankle) is the only injury legacy from the win today.
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