JACQUES TO SCHOOL BLUES
Nienaber insists it’ll take 14 lessons for Leinster’s players to learn the ins and outs of his tactical plans
JACQUES NIENABER jokes that he can swear like a local – but admits it will take him 14 games to make Leinster ready for glory.
The World Cup winning head coach landed in Dublin in late November and already has some favourite local boozers near his southside home – The Dropping Well, Ashton’s and Farmer Browns.
“Two, three, actually, I’m not picky,” he smiled. “They’ve all got good pints. Not that I’m a big drinker but I like to have a pint every now and then.”
Having already coached at Munster, he is down with the vernacular – he knows all the different ways people say ‘f off ’ to each other.
“Swearing? I think I shocked our group,” he grinned. “Everybody has got their things they do wrong and swearing is mine. I do swear a lot.
“Am I becoming local? I won’t say that yet.
“But I know where the pubs are
– my pubs, my locals – and I don’t have to drive with the
GPS anymore.
“I can get to Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock... where is the shopping centre? Dundrum, without GPS. The RDS, I can get there without GPS.
“I get on the 11 bus if I want to go into town to have some coffee there so, yeah, beautiful.”
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So he has a grasp of the basics in his new environment but it is clear that his Leinster players are still getting to grips with their new senior coach’s ways.
The Blues suffered a blip on New Year’s Day – the 22-21 loss at the RDS to Ulster was their first loss since Nienaber’s arrival and their first since the opening day defeat in Glasgow.
The visitors happily explained later that they had targeted Leinster’s blitz defence, with Billy Burns kicking in behind to devastating effect.
“We were flying off the line,” recalled Nienaber. “His kicks were spot on. It was a good tactic.
“We have to get better at dealing with it.”
Clearly Leinster remain a work in progress and, according to Nienaber’s prediction, it could be mid to late April – Champions Cup quarter-final time – before the Blues are fully firing.
Nienaber says there wasn’t a lot wrong with Leinster’s defence before he joined but that the coaches, players and organisation wanted to change tack.
It was the logical step on the back of their failure to win a Champions Cup since 2018 and it is why Leo Cullen (inset) wanted Nienaber.
The 51-year-old said: “The big question was always, ‘do you think we go on the way we did or do we start changing things?’ and they were keen to change things. And we started straight away, training stuff.
“You must have the patience otherwise the guy who is going to get the blunt end of everything is probably Leo.
“It will be 14 weeks (games). It took 14 weeks with Munster, it took 14 games with the ‘Boks when we took over in 2018.
“In 2018 we won 50 per cent of our Test matches and the majority we lost because of our defence.
“But in 2019 we only lost one. So it takes time.
“Unfortunately, the players will have to pay their school fees and learn.”