CULLEN’S SOUTHERN COMFORT
IT WAS a good weekend for three of the four Irish provinces in the Pro14 but the expanded league is still battling serious credibility issues following an embarrassingly low attendance for the Southern Kings home defeat by Leinster.
The official attendance at the Nelson Bay Stadium was given at little over 3,000 but there appeared to be less than 1,000 present to witness Leinster’s comfortable 31-10 win in Port Elizabeth.
The introduction of the Kings and Cheetahs was rushed through by necessity but has endured a difficult start, clearly failing to capture the imagination of a South African rugby public now reeling from the Springboks’ 57-0 humiliation at the hands of the All Blacks on Saturday.
The Cheetahs recorded the first win from six outings for the South African franchises when seeing off Italian minnows Zebre in Bloemfontein. It was a frenetic affair that produced 93 points and 13 tries, the home side picking up a bonus point which will give them confidence for hosting Leinster next weekend.
Leo Cullen’s men flew to Cape Town yesterday to prepare for that fixture and will have captain Isa Nacewa and scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park back on board after their visa mix-up denied the Kiwi duo entry to South Africa last week.
Even allowing for the logistical complications, Leinster’s director of rugby was content with the start to the province’s African adventure and says the break in Cape Town (they will travel to Bloemfontein later in the week to reduce the effects of high altitude) will benefit the squad ahead of Friday’s showdown with the Cheetahs.
‘We want to just try to keep it normal for our preparations, because we usually just fly to a venue for an away game the day before, and that’s what we will do going up to Bloemfontein,’ said Cullen.
‘We’ve just picked a place to train and we have a couple of contacts in Cape Town, so that was just for the ease of our training week.
‘It just breaks up the trip for us as well, I think it will work pretty well,’ added Cullen, who feels his side has areas of improvement for the Cheetahs game.
‘Sometimes, when it’s a big stadium and not a huge amount of people attending, you’ve just got to bring your own energy, and I think that the energy [the Southern Kings] brought was greater than ours in the first half.
‘That kind of left us second best a lot of the time, but we regrouped at half-time. I thought that the intent and the energy that we brought at the start of the second half allowed us to get a foothold in the game and we grew from there,’ he added.
Munster, meanwhile, continued their 100 per cent start to the season, earning a hard-fought 21-16 win away to the Ospreys.
In wet conditions, the visitors used their physical dominance up front to grind out the result, with South African second-row Jean Kleyn producing a man-of-thematch performance.
Kleyn scored one of Munster’s two tries, the other coming from winger Darren Sweetnam, and last year’s runners-up were stubborn in defence to hold out for the victory.
While uncertainty continues to surround Munster’s coaching position, with director of rugby Rassie Erasmus and defence coach Jacques Nienaber returning to South Africa in December, they have made an excellent start to the season but face a stern examination away to Glasgow, who sit just a point behind them in Conference A, on Friday night.
Ulster and Connacht are both at home this weekend and both will be expected to claim victory against Bernard Jackman’s Dragons and Cardiff Blues respectively.
The Dragons picked up their first win of the season at home to Connacht last Friday but will be vulnerable in Ravenhill, with Ulster looking to kick on from their excellent win over champions Scarlets. Cardiff have endured a wretched start to the season, losing all three of their matches so far.