Cronin: ‘Hunted’ Leinster need to get back on track quickly
THERE is a saying in golf that there are no pictures on the scorecard.
No matter how ugly the final figures, the result is all that matters. Nevertheless, there will be a day when it’s going to catch up with you.
That’s pretty much how it feels in Leinster HQ all this week; some will sense they had it coming. Leinster certainly did.
The escape to victory against Connacht may have hidden a multitude of sins from the wider public but nothing escapes the inner sanctum.
And, after losing in Limerick last weekend, Leinster know just how close they were to compiling what would have been – for this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut at least
– barely unthinkable back-toback defeats. But the feeling was a familiar one; for they felt it in the aftermath of that stunning success against Connacht too.
“It’s tough,” admits Seán Cronin, who may have sat out the weekend defeat but couldn’t escape the grim post-mortems.
“We had it with Toulouse and even with Connacht. We had a bit of a loss mentality about how we analysed that game because we got lucky at the end, everyone knew that. “I suppose you’ve just got to go through the game and take the learnings from it. I think that’s what Stuart Lancaster and Leo Cullen have said this week.
“It’s the process that you have to get right, you take things and learn things and get them right. And good players learn from that and put it into practice in the next game.” Leinster have good players and can do just that; yet the manner of defeat has clearly shaken them, such that Cronin points to the need for an immediate response against Ulster, even if the latter are almost always willing to submit once they arrive in Dublin.
“We’re looking forward to that, another big interprovincial game. It’s good to be back at home as well.
“We pulled it off late against Connacht, we need to put in a good performance this week to get things back on track. It would be nice going into Europe after a win.”
Setback
Leinster’s response to their setback will be watched keenly as the stakes are raised ahead of European fare; they have coped more than well with their status as double champions.
“After you have a season like we did last year, there is a massive target on your back. Take the Toulouse game, the reaction of their fans and coaching staff after beating us, that’s something that we definitely have to be better at coping with.
“We have a big target on our backs, the season before that we lost to Clermont and at home to Scarlets in the semi-final, we were hunting them guys the following year. We’re playing the hunted now. The big emphasis is for teams on trying to get one over on us. There are aspects of our game that we can get better at.
“We haven’t really started games even though we started quite well on Saturday, I think we didn’t start well in Toulouse, games that we struggled; we didn’t start well against well against Connacht, so that’s a big focus for us going forward.”
Dialling down the temperature in terms of temperament will help. He recalls himself and Dave Kilcoyne (left) calling each other “mad Limerick men” after another recent feisty derby but knows there are limits.
“Some would call it healthy competition. I know things probably got a bit out of hand at the weekend but I think the cards we got were more clumsy stuff instead of vicious play.
“I think people have been calling for a bit of bite to come back into the interpro for years, you can’t have it both ways.
“Things got a bit out of hand so I think that’s something that we definitely have to work on. Instead of going above that line, we need to stay down here because we know if we stay down here and play to our ability, we’re a pretty good team. So it’s about balancing that.”