Blues wary of ‘tricky’ Ulster
LANSDOWNE ROAD is set to be jammed at the end of March when Leinster and Ulster square off in a seismic All-Ireland Champions Cup quarter-final. It will be the first time the sides have met in Europe since the 2012 Heineken Cup final, with Joe Schmidt’s Leinster cruising to the title after a 42-14 win at Twickenham. Leinster secured a home quarterfinal thanks to yesterday’s 37-19 win over Wasps in Coventry and Leo Cullen’s men will welcome Ulster to the capital. ‘They’re making steady improvement with a lot of players we know pretty well, which makes it tricky,’ said Cullen on Leinster’s looming showdown with Ulster. ‘It always makes it tricky when
LEINSTER will be up against a number of familiar faces when Ulster visit Lansdowne Road at the end of March. Leo Cullen’s men secured a home quarter final in the European Champions Cup thanks to yesterday’s 37-19 win over Wasps at the Ricoh Arena.
Leinster’s reward for finishing top of Pool 1 is a meeting with their northern rivals in the capital. The fact that Ulster boast a sizable ex-Leinster contingent (including Ireland flanker Jordi Murphy) makes the encounter all the more intriguing.
‘They’ve looked good, defensively they’ve looked strong,’ said Cullen
‘Obviously, it was hard for us to get a gauge on them from our [Pro14] game against them in the RDS a couple of weeks ago because they sent down a very young team.
‘They’re progressing well and I thought they looked particularly strong in the two back-to-back games against Scarlets, which we looked at in the lead-in to our game.
‘They’re making steady improvement with a lot of players we know pretty well, which makes it tricky. It always makes it tricky when players know us well, know what we try to do.
‘We need to make sure we have a proper plan for that, but it’s a long way down the track now. We’ll look forward to it.’
In the injury-enforced absences of Johnny Sexton and Luke McGrath, Cullen turned to Ross Byrne and Jamison Gibson-Park to steer Leinster home from half-back.
And Byrne put that disappointment of his shock omission from Joe Schmidt’s Six Nations squad behind him and delivered an accomplished display in Coventry.
The 23-year-old was his usual reliable self in front of the posts, contributing 12 points from the boot while he deployed his trademark kick pass to good effect on several occasion.
New Zealand-born No9 GibsonPark, who qualifies for Ireland through the residency rule in June, also caught the eye with his passing and intelligent game management.
‘We played the game in the right areas,’ said Cullen. ‘Between Jamison and Ross, they managed the game well.
‘Jamison with some of his kicks and Adam (Byrne), in particular, regathering — it meant we were playing in the right areas of the field. We were able to build some pressure and eventually turn some of that pressure into points.’
Cullen will also have been pleased with the efforts of his pack where Rhys Ruddock once again produced a tireless shift from the blindside flank.
Sean O’Brien, making his first appearance for Leinster since he broke his arm in Ireland’s autumn clash with Argentina, also impressed.
With Devin Toner back on board, Leinster’s lineout and driving maul was hugely effective. Sean Cronin crossed for a brace of tries as a direct result of big drives.
‘It’s a reasonably simple formula, but I thought the guys stayed patient with the plan, which was good,’ Cullen explained. ‘We took some of the chances when they came along. Some of the forwards delivered some decent set-piece platform with Dev coming back in there. I thought he controlled things well.
‘Just applying enough pressure, making it difficult for Wasps to get out of their end. To have that 20-point lead at half-time was very, very pleasing. ‘We just need to look forward now, which is a quarterfinal against Ulster, a team that we know well. A lot of the players that we know well, they know us well, so we need to prepare accordingly for that now.’
The reigning champions are very much on track to retain their title. Cullen will lose a sizable chunk of his playing squad as the Six Nations moves into focus at the beginning of next month.
When his frontliners arrive back into Leinster headquarters at the end of March, Cullen can look forward to a meeting with old friends.
‘We will look forward to the quarterfinal,’ he added.
‘It is nice to be at home as well. It is a lot of reward for the work that has gone in.
‘We played the game in the right areas. We were able to build some pressure, and we were able to turn some of that pressure into points.’