IT’S A BIG

Leinster’s fringe men outclass Ulster while gifting frontliners a sizeable advantage over the Reds in semi-final clash

IT is not just an extra day’s rest that should give Leinster an edge against Munster next Friday night.

As qualification for the PRO14 semi-finals was secured before lockdown, Blues boss Leo Cullen had the luxury of swapping out his entire team for Saturday’s win over Ulster at the Aviva Stadium.

In contrast Munster, chasing at least a draw to claim the last play-off spot, started with two-thirds of the team that lost to Leinster in Irish rugby’s first game back 17 days ago.

Cullen pointed out that the Leinster coaches were able to do some semi-final prep on Friday with a number of their frontliners, who had the weekend off.

“We’re just trying to manage the group from a physical point of view and we’ll take apart the performance and see who is best going to represent the group,” said Cullen.

“But turnarounds make it tricky, even for the five days, because head knocks and things like that, if they come into it, makes it impossible to turn it around ( for selection).”

Already Cullen will have closely watched back Saturday night’s victory to see if any of those who played will feature in the squad to face the Reds this week.

Interestingly, Dan Leavy and James Ryan took part in the warm-up and Cullen mentioned that they weren’t “a million miles away”, but it would be a surprise if they are involved so soon.

Flanker Will Connors put his claim forward with a serious defensive display, while Ciaran Frawley’s switch to inside centre saw the out-half take his chance well.

There’s a backlog at No.10 now, with Johnny Sexton and the two Byrne players who featured on Saturday also there.

Frawley showed he is a potential option in that centre role behind Robbie Henshaw, and could provide a new 10-12 kicking dimension for the province.

Pleased with how his fringe players performed, Cullen pin-pointed several areas from the 27-25 victory over Munster the previous week that must be improved for this week’s meeting.

“The biggest factor was line-out,” he said. “We were a little inaccurate, which doesn’t allow us to get any quality launch into the game.

“And some indiscipline as well... we gave Munster a huge amount of access into the game. It really makes life very difficult when we give away that amount of penalties.

“So we need to figure out what we can do better, get a clear understanding of what the referee is looking for.

“You can’t go through knock-out games giving away penalties like that because you may get away with it, but eventually there’ll be a day when you come unstuck. We just have to paint a better picture for the referee.

“But Munster were very physical, very aggressive at the rucks so we just have to make sure we deal with that threat.”

Cullen saw an improvement in that area last Saturday, with the threat of Marcel Coetzee largely negated.

But he warned of Munster’s “multiple poach threats” including Tadhg Beirne, CJ Stander and Peter O’mahony.

“That’s a big part of their game and make-up, so we have to make sure we deal with them,” he stressed.