Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
THE BLUE JUGGERNAUT
Leinster going from strength to strength
Leinster Rugby can lay claim to being the greatest Irish juggernaut in the history of international team sports.
Since it is a claim that can only be traced as far back to a semifinal in 2009 — when they finally beat Munster in the Heineken Cup — it makes their subsequent records all the more remarkable.
Hands up Leinster, you and your circa-14,000 season tickets holders, the club was ‘rubbish’ before that!
Now, though, the Dublinbased professional franchise, which operates off a wage bill of around €2.75m per annum, have won four Heineken Cups in 13 seasons, 2009-21.
Current champions Toulouse, wage bill €12.5m, have won five Heineken titles in 26 years, 1996-21.
Toulon, working off a circa €24m budget at the time, took three titles in 2013, 2014 and 2015 but have not featured as a power since the money and the interest of the president waned.
Saracens won three titles between 2016, 2017 and 2019 before their finances became such a scandal they were labelled a pariah and dumped from the English Premiership.
Only Leicester Tigers, Munster and Wasps have two titles apiece — all six of those wins pre-2009.
Meanwhile, this season Leinster are looking for a fifth consecutive PRO14/URC title, having lost just 13 games in annexing the previous four (undefeated in 2019/20).
Whatever about denigrating the PRO14 by pointing out it ‘just’ contained teams from Ireland, Scotland Wales and Italy, this season’s inclusion of the four powerful ‘Metro’ South African franchises should prompt a rethink.
Ahead
The Sharks, Stormers, Bulls and Lions have played 16 home URC games before last night’s fixtures and won 15 of them.
That’s the same four clubs who have competed favourably across the 24 Super Rugby editions from 1996-2019, with the Bulls winning three times and, between them, Sharks, Stormers and Lions making eight finals.
Before this weekend’s games Leinster were 10 points to the good with three games to play in the league proper.
They are so far ahead that they left all 11 of those who started the last Ireland Six Nations game against Scotland behind as they undertook a two-game trip to South Africa.
Leinster are a rugby club employing snooker tactics these days; those 11, plus a rested James Ryan and Devin Toner, are already studying Heineken Cup quarter-final opponents Leicester Tigers, three games away.
Is it time to recognise Leo Cullen, a Leinster player 1997-2005 & 2007-2014 and in situ as head coach since 2015, as the world’s pre-eminent club coach?
“Leo has done well since he’s become a coach, I think it kind of speaks for itself doesn’t it?” says Ireland/Leinster star Devin Toner flatly.
“I think he’s done phenomenally well with the silverware he has won since he got the job. He is a brilliant man manager, he has the respect of the players, and he has the respect of the coaches too.
“Comparisons worldwide surely go without saying, if Leinster are one of the best clubs in the world, the academy is so highly rated in the world, therefore Leo is one of the top coaches in the world and must be highly respected.”
Angry
And yet, very little is known of Cullen; he faces as much media as any indigenous rugby or soccer coach.
Cullen is articulate, answers questions, there has never been media bans or histrionic storming out of press conferences.
“Oh yeah, he can get angry, of course he can,” says Toner almost reassuringly,” and I have seen him angry, as both a player as well as a coach.
“He’d get angry if someone doesn’t know their detail, obviously if someone does something repeatedly wrong.
“I am not going to say he has a temper but he knows when to turn it on and turn it off like any good coach does.”
Jim Hamilton is part of the Premier Sports team that has been commentating ‘live’ on the URC this season.
The teak-tough Scotland second-row played with Cullen at Leicester — the tough, yes, working-class melting pot whose ‘ethos’ the Irishman is credited with ‘adding’ to the mix of four-wheel drives, entitlement, and private schools at Leinster.
Failure
And lest the rewrite historians forget, a Leinster that until his return in 2008/2009, was an abject failure.
“So Leo Cullen for me,” says Hamilton without pausing,“gave me my career for Scotland, in
terms of I was at Leicester with him.
“I was there with a second-row that involved Martin Johnson, Ben Kay, Louis Deacon, Leo Cullen and myself and none of them were keen to take me under their wing, apart from Leo.”
Cullen’s ability to work within an overall team structure and, yet, compartmentalise worked in Hamilton’s favour — the small pictures are all part of t he big picture.
“I can still remember him stressing to me it is all well and good being able to be this perceived physical player who could move scrums, hit tackles and smash rucks.
“He said the point of difference for me will be calling a line-out and Leo, when he was at Leicester, him and Shane Jennings were two of the best signings Leicester ever made in my opinion and we had guys like Josh Kronfeld come for a couple of seasons as well.”
From a management point of view it all seemed part of an apprenticeship — playing was the way to learn how to be a coach, the end goal.
Continues Hamilton: “Leo Cullen, he’ll be the first to say it, wasn’t the most gifted of rugby players.
Humility
“He’s probably quite similar to myself, quite slow, slower than a week in jail, but he taught me how to win a line-out, he understood the game inside out.
“He was personable and I’m loving seeing what he’s doing at Leinster because he’s not only gone to Leinster and gone ‘I’m the boss and I know how everything works’.
“He’s had the humility to bring in other coaches to be able to help him through that process.”
Cullen is more than just the sum of the Leinster parts.
“I know Leinster have got everything at their disposal in terms of strength in depth and the colleges/schools and stuff like that.
“But I can’t speak probably enough of Leo Cullen for what he did for me personally, what he did at Leicester.
“And I think what he’s done at Leinster isn’t a fluke and the team that he’s managed to build around himself - he is a fantastic, fantastic human being.”