Leo Cullen hopes to see a swollen Aviva Stadium on Saturday when Leinster face Glasgow in their United Rugby Championship (URC) semi-final (kick-off 2.45pm). A combination of the bank holiday weekend and the end of school and university terms reduced the stadium to a trickle of fans last Saturday. The official attendance for the quarter-final win over Scarlets was 12,879 – about one-quarter of the stadium’s capacity.
“It’s on Saturday, please turn out in force,” said Cullen after the 33-21 win. “We would love to see you here in June and get excited about cheering on the team and all the rest, because the players feed off that energy.
“The players are human beings and they want to do well, they want to feel that support behind them. So, for us it’s just about dusting ourselves off now.”
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“I haven’t even talked to the medics,” he said when asked about any injuries that may have been sustained against Scarlets. “I know a couple of guys went off during the game, so I don’t actually have any updates there. We’ll see how guys are and build a plan and just get excited.
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“It’s great to be in a semi-final again, but we take nothing for granted. Again, going back to the semi-final we’ve already lost [to Northampton], people were looking ahead. Everyone’s looking ahead. Everyone is. Supporters, staff were trying to look too far ahead. So, it was a real harsh lesson for us, but [it’s about] making sure we learn from that. So, be excited now.”
Cullen explained how pleased he was to get through the match on the right side of the scoreboard. He says knock-out matches are all about winning first and performance second, stressing that the majority of the season is a seeding programme for the knock-out phases.
He continued: “We are pleased to get through to the next round. It’s great to be in knock-out rugby. You go through the league and it’s a seeding process.
“When you finish top, you’d love to go, ‘can you hand us the trophy here?’. But unfortunately, that’s not the way this competition is geared up. Some teams that are trying to get into the top eight are almost playing cup rugby to get there, whereas when you have already qualified and are guaranteed top spot, it can make those couple of games leading into the knock-out game a bit tricky because you don’t have the jeopardy aspect.”
Cullen added that he was pleased with the way Leinster reacted at half-time against Scarlets. Having started the match sharply and scored two early tries through James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park, Scarlets came back into contention and were just one point behind, with the score 15-14 at the break.
“It’s a big moment before half-time because we are on their line. If you look at it, there are multiple Scarlets players that are offside, but we play and we don’t execute, so there’s stuff in our control,” said Cullen.
“And then they go the length of the field. In a perfect world it gets refereed and you have a penalty there. We’re eight points clear at that stage, so we’d go into half-time 11 points up. Instead, it’s one point and you’re like, ‘ugh’.
“You have to deal with stuff that’s there. Some of it is out of your control. You’re seeing lots of games coming down to some moments. We have to do our bit well and just find a way sometimes because it can be unorthodox.
“Overall, we are pleased to get through. We will just build a plan now for next week and recover well. We’re into June rugby. The season goes on.”
