It’s a double-edged sword being bulk suppliers to both the Lions and Ireland. So, finally, in the first week of December, there was a sense of Leinster’s own season finally having lift-off after a loose 45-28 win over Harlequins kickstarted their latest Champions Cup campaign.
“We’re not quite there yet. When will we get there? That’s the question,” admitted Leo Cullen after a game which saw Caelan Doris, Jack Conan and Joe McCarthy all make their first appearances of the season. There was also a 20-minute debut for Rieko Ioane and a first Champions Cup start for Paddy McCarthy, not to mention a first start together for him and his older brother.
“But we are up and running now and we’ll be better, I think,” ventured Cullen ahead of a six-day turnaround before facing his former club Leicester Tigers next Friday night at Welford Road.
The win came at a cost, though, with RG Snyman and Jordan Larmour both departing due to injuries which are likely to rule them out of the Leicester trip. This is offset by the return from suspension of James Ryan and could mean a first start for Ioane.
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Unsurprisingly, despite his post-match altercation with Johnny Sexton after the World Cup quarter-final, there was a warm reception for the 86-time capped All Blacks centre/winger from the 22,298 home crowd.
Cullen said Ioane had “some good touches”, adding: “He probably could have scored a try but he shows a selfless act of hitting Jimmy O’Brien. He spoke very well in the dressing room as well. He’s been really good this week.
“Again, it’s a start. We don’t have a clear plan for the week ahead, so we need to have a chat with coaches and see what we want to do over the course of the season.
“We’re just a little bit over-eager to try and score tries, because the lads want to go out and play, don’t they. You can see them. It’s not like we’re lacking any intent to play. We’ve lots of intent to play and we still scored seven tries, by the way.
“So, it’s just making sure that we have a bit of composure within there as well and a bit more accuracy as well, in terms of dealing with some of these messy pictures. That’s probably the big thing.”
Cullen acknowledged that Leinster’s defence became disconnected at times in conceding three tries and then a fourth from a long-range turnover near the end.
“It’s just making sure everyone’s working together to connect as a group better,” said Cullen, adding that they’ll only have two training sessions this week. “We need to get on with the hand that we have.”
Pointing out that Leinster had an arm wrestle when not coming close to a bonus point against Clermont at home last December, Cullen said: “It’ll be a different challenge next week. Leicester will have a bit of everything because they’ll want to impose themselves physically on us. That’s going to be a great contest but our guys, I would hope, will be better.”
Harlequins’ Australian head coach Jason Gilmore was “massively” disappointed that “international regs” obliged him to rest several of his Test players but maintained this was a tournament his club wanted to go after, beginning with a home game against Bayonne next weekend.
He echoed Cullen in adding of Leinster: “It doesn’t matter how good your football team is, they need to spend time together and that’s literally probably the first time Leinster have had all of their boys back this year.
“They’re a great football team. Obviously the scoreline reflected that tonight, but they’ll build with their cohesion and I’m sure they’ll be better next week and the week after.”
By contrast to Leinster, Munster have to lick their wounds from Saturday night’s damaging 40-14 beating in Bath and regroup ahead of next Saturday’s first Champions Cup game to be held in Páirc Uí Chaoimh when they host Gloucester next Saturday (kick-off 5.30pm).
On top of being without Jack Crowley, Munster were badly hit by the withdrawal of Jean Kleyn in the build-up for personal reasons. Kleyn’s absence was especially felt at the lineout and their defensive maul. Bath created carnage on the Diarmuid Barron throw from the off. Their maul forced the first of a decisive four-try blitz and bonus point by the end of the first quarter, as well as a yellow card for Munster captain Tadhg Beirne.
“It’s probably on my shoulders, those first 20 minutes, unfortunately,” admitted Beirne, who also said he should have varied his calls for seven-man lineouts.
The intended starting loosehead, Michael Milne, was also ruled out in the warm-up. Head coach Clayton McMillan has said he is hopeful Crowley will be fit for Saturday’s must-win game in what will be a record Munster home attendance for a Champions Cup game, with 34,500 tickets sold.
“We feel like we’re a better team than what we showed, especially in the first 15-20 minutes,” said McMillan.
“But there were positives. That’s one of the top teams in Europe. We keep the scoreboard pretty even there for 60-odd minutes. We don’t want to pat ourselves on the back for that because it’s an 80-minute game, but there are some positives and we’ll need to find some gains pretty quickly at home next week.”
