Leinster focused on getting in the zone for festive date in Limerick
And Against Stadium Moran/sportsfile Leinster Urc Alex Of Soroka Brendan During The Victory Picture: At Connacht Aviva Teammates The
Leo Cullen has challenged his Leinster players to get their mental game right over the tricky Christmas period as they brace for another festive appointment with Munster in Limerick.
The URC leaders made it ten wins from ten this season across both competitions with another imperfect victory, this time against a gritty Connacht side at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.
Two first-half tries from Andrew Osborne and Charlie Tector gave them the breathing room required. They were then made to hang on by the visitors who trailed 17-0 early in the second-half but fought back with scores from Oisin Dowling and Shane Jennings.
Leinster were without 15 Ireland internationals for this one, either through injury or player welfare protocols, but that leaves them with the option of recalling many of them for the game in Thomond Park.
Among those not involved at the weekend were captain Caelan Doris and young out-half Sam Prendergast and the hope is that the latter will start on Thursday in the bearpit that can be Thomond and with Jack Crowley wearing the other No.10 jersey.
Whatever the personnel, Leinster will be afforded a warm welcome but they have been successful on their last five visits to Limerick. A good-humoured Cullen was tickled at talk of fortresses but knows that his side need to be dialled in to get another win.
“What do you mean by fortress? Knights at the gate?“ he joked. “It’s very hard to win there, I would suggest, so I don’t think it is that much easier. For us it’s what we do this week. It’s a short week, a six-day turnaround. It’s trying to be in the moment.”
The head coach will be urging his players to be in the moment over the Christmas: to focus fully on family when off duty and to dial in 100% when it comes to the day job. That’s trickier than normal with all the distractions of the holiday season.
“It’s the skill at this time of year. It’s easy to say, it's so much harder to do it. It will always be a great occasion regardless.
“Quite often it comes down to the preparation leading into these games. Thinking back to a couple of games where we might have struggled, where a couple of things haven’t gone our way and you are in the game, and it has this snowball effect.
“When you prepare well, start well in the game down there, then you can exert some of the dominance and put the opposition under pressure. So, that’s very 101. Saying it is the easy part doing it, as I said, is the hard part.”
Thomond will at least be followed by a sizeable break for both provinces with Munster and Leinster not back into action for another two weeks when the third round of the Champions Cup pool stages kick in.
The absence of a URC round over the New Year does, on the surface, give Leinster more leeway in terms of player availability for the Munster clash so it will be intriguing to see what manner of squad Cullen names for the trip.
This latest win was claimed with a mixed bag of a team that boasted world-class talents such as Jordie Barrett and RG Snyman, a smattering of Ireland internationals and five academy players – although one of the latter was Ireland hooker Gus McCarthy.
That being the case, there was plenty to commend this win against a locked and loaded Connacht that was kept scoreless for the first 52 minutes but there were some familiar concerns for the boys in blue.
The lineout continues to splutter, the attack can look blunt – their two tries owed plenty to bad Connacht defending in their midfield – and their iffy discipline extended to another 15 penalties and two yellow cards, for Lee Barron and Jimmy O’Brien.
“Connacht are a very good attacking team and they're a pretty cohesive group,” said Cullen. “Like, the thing that we're struggling with is the cohesion part because we're chopping and changing the team. Some of that, it's been forced upon us.
“It was sort of a one-off game. We knew it wouldn't be perfect, it would be far from perfect, but we just needed to scrap and stay in there and we're pleased with what we brought in those couple of areas.
“Just working hard for each other even though it's not that pretty at times, but listen, they found a way, so we'll take it.”
J O’Brien; A Arenzana-King, C Tector, J Barrett, A Osborne; R Byrne, L McGrath; J Boyle, G McCarthy, R Slimani; D Mangan, RG Snyman; A Soroka, S Penny, J Conan.
M Deegan for Conan (22); R Baird for Deegan (HIA, 33); J Gibson-Park for McGrath, L Barron for McCarthy, C Healy for Slimani and M Milne for Boyle (all 51); H Byrne for Arenzana-King (62); B Deeny for Mangan (75).
P O’Conor; M Hansen, C Forde, B Aki, S Jennings; J Ioane, B Murphy; D Buckley, D Heffernan, F Bealham; J Murphy, D Murray; C Prendergast, S Hurley-Langton, P Boyle.
S Cordero for Ioane (HIA, 32); C Blade for Murphy, S Jansen for Boyle, O Dowling for Murphy and J Aungier for Bealham (all 52); D Tierney-Martin for Heffernan (58); C Oliver for Hurley-Langton and J Duggan for Buckley (both 64).
C Busby (IRFU).