Leinster out to avoid repeat of away day blues
JOSH VAN DER FLIER believes the lessons Leinster learned from away defeats by Toulouse and Munster this season will stand to them for this weekend’s trip to Wasps in their final Champions Cup pool game.
Leo Cullen’s men are three points clear at the top of Pool 1 following their impressive revenge win over Toulouse at the RDS last weekend. However, a victory is needed on Sunday to guarantee a home quarter-final.
With Wasps only playing for pride in last place, it should be no contest for the Pro14 and European champions, but flanker Van der Flier insists recent troubles in Toulouse and Limerick have focused minds within the squad.
‘Obviously it’s a lot easier to play at home. The RDS fans are incredible,’ said Van der Flier.
‘Teams tend to be better at home and that’s something we’ve hopefully learned from the Toulouse game and the Munster game. We didn’t do things right in Munster or in Toulouse.
‘Wasps had a good win in the Ricoh against Northampton a couple of weeks back. Any team will want to defend (their patch) at home.’
One of the most encouraging aspects to last weekend’s victory was the way younger players fronted up after Leinster were denied the services of experienced frontliners Johnny Sexton, Devin Toner, Robbie Henshaw, Rob Kearney and the suspended James Lowe.
Despite Toulouse going into the game with all their big players available and in superb form in the Top14, Leinster dominated the game with a tactical masterclass and all their younger contingent playing their part.
‘We’ve seen it every time there has been a younger side — lads step up,’ said Van der Flier, who has been capped 13 times at international level.
‘We had a gameplan, we knew Toulouse would be very good. We played against them over there and we had seen the run of games they had coming into the weekend.
‘But we knew if we stuck to the gameplan that we would do well. We were confident going into it but it was very pleasing the way the game went.’
While Sexton will be absent for the Wasps game as he continues to nurse a knee injury, Leinster’s injury concerns have eased for this weekend with a number of players who missed the Toulouse win coming back into contention ahead of today’s team announcement.
One of those is Sean O’Brien, who was this week included alongside Van der Flier in Ireland’s Six Nations squad after a fractured season.
However, rather than be daunted by the incredible backrow competition for Leinster and Ireland, 25-year-old Van der Flier sees it as a means of raising his own game to fight for his position at openside.
‘Yeah, it is always incredibly competitive,’ he acknowledged.
‘You have Dan (Leavy) and Sean O’Brien and Scott Penny now doing incredible as well, so there is an awful lot of competition.
‘You just try to focus on your own game and play as well as you can. It makes you more aware that if you’re not playing really well when he is back, possibly this week, then you know you won’t be playing.
‘It makes you just focus a bit more when you have that competition. You can’t be lazy or complacent.
‘The reason you’re picked is for the things you do well, then you try to add things to it, but you’ve got to have your unique selling point, whatever that is you’ve got to keep working on that,’ he added.
‘I’d keep trying to tip away at everything, get a bit of passing in, a bit of tackling, there’s nothing that can’t improve. It’s important to not get lazy about the things that went well.’