LANCASTER ON...

LEO CULLEN

Since I arrived, he’s always impressed me with his composure and calmness. I never got any sense of panic. We’ve got a new generation of players coming through but the more he’s done the role, the more he has grown in confidence as a coach, a leader and a manager. He manages the squad exceptionally well, with that rotation of players, the selection decisions that have to get made, how he communicates those, his insight on the game goes way beyond just lineout. People underestimate his input.

DEVELOPING SKILLS AT LEINSTER

Even when we are in the gym, we would interlace conditioning with skill. All the weights are on one side and we’ve got this space where you can do skills in there.

‘I put a lot of time and effort into thinking about what’s the sequence of practices or skills that we want to do during the course of this 40-minute block that will give us the best outcome. And ultimately what you’re wanting to get to is that they play on instinct. That’s ultimately the goal and some of the tries we scored against Wasps were on instinct really rather than pre-planned, because you can’t pre-plan Tadhg Furlong being on the wing or Johnny (Sexton) passing the ball between his legs.

COACHING IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Say for example, hypothetically a job came up in the southern hemisphere – and it is a goal of mine to coach there – for me to be in somewhere like Australia for example, and with my wife, and with the kids to be in university at 17 and 18 or 18 and 19, to be miles and miles away? And my Mum to be on her own? It’s not quite the right time. I’m 49, I’ve still in my mind got 20 years of coaching to go. And I want to do a good job here.

GARETH SOUTHGATE

We met up before the World Cup (in Russia) and I tried to pass on what I learnt from the 2015 World Cup to him. I’m on the technical advisory board for the FA, along with various other people from outside of football. I’m catching up with him in the next couple of months. We get on really well.