Horror show leaves another poor taste in Leinster mouths
LEO CULLEN quickly cut to the chase Friday night, acknowledging how devastating late-season setbacks colour people’s thinking like no other result.
‘You get remembered by what happens on these big days unfortunately,’ he accepted, knowing Leinster’s 2016/17 Pro12 will now be recalled for one terrible May evening rather than anything achieved across the eight other months. Failure to qualify for what would have been a seventh final in eight seasons has that type of domineering, negative effect.
‘For most part the players have been outstanding, particularly when they have been playing at home his year,’ he pondered, launching into a recollection of far happier moments in Dublin since last September, everything from days when they strutted their stuff and won easy through to recent tight outings where they had to figure out how to stay composed and win.
There was no semi-final success recorded against Scarlets, though, the outcome a nightmare black mark against the Cullen regime. Scarlets only had 14 players for 42 minutes, a period of the game criminally won by the visitors six points to five as Leinster never regained the composure obliterated by the Welsh team’s opening half salvo that put them 21-10 ahead.
It left Cullen stunned. ‘It’s hard to explain how off we were in terms of just giving the ball up cheaply and just giving the Scarlets chance after chance after chance… we need to be able to be better at dealing with the expectation, so if we are expected to win a game that we actually come out and win a game.
‘I’m gutted the way we performed, gutted the way we reacted to knowing we were in a scenario where we made a few errors and we couldn’t dig ourselves out of that hole. We had good enough players to be able to manage the scenario better.’
It will be interesting how the dust settles on this ambush. A year ago, Leinster still reached the final even though Cullen, then only a first-year rookie coach, at times looked out of his depth, especially during the club’s most humiliating European campaign ever.
This term he appeared far more competent in the role, his team infused by a wave of youth and his established players stepping up to the mark until recent weeks when bad starts in Lyon and Dublin ended interest in both tournaments.
Despite the progress, his expected contract extension — and fresh deals for his staff — has never been publicly rubberstamped.
No one would have batted an eye earlier in 2017 if hands were shaken on an extended deal, but what should have been an endorsement of his coaching ticket’s improvement will now be delivered with a thud, Leinster trophy-less as another season ends with a poor taste in the mouth.
Why hasn’t there yet been any confirmation is only feeding the conspiracy theories that Cullen’s initial appointment has never had the full backing of IRFU boss David Nucifora, that Stuart Lancaster has been running the show since he was parachuted in as a senior coach at the start of September.
All very unsettling, but all very Leinster at the same time. Their brand of entertaining rugby should be packing out the RDS every fortnight but it hasn’t, creating the impression that this is an organisation with an image problem that needs attention if its potential is to be fully realised.
Much of the blame for Friday night must be attached to their onfield leaders who should have been better able to guide a younger generation who lack big-game nous — evident as Adam Byrne was caught napping for Scarlets’ first try.
Johnny Sexton was at fault for five of a whopping total of 24 turnovers. There was a try-ruining forward pass, a restart that didn’t go 10, a kick out of the full… all very unSexton like.
Throw in how Rhys Ruddock was stepped on his inside for tries two and three, how Cian Healy is a shadow of the freak he once was and it added up to becoming one hell of an unmitigated disaster.
‘There is nothing worse than losing in a semi-final,’ vouched skipper Isa Nacewa, who hit an upright with a straightforward conversion. ‘It’s even worse than a final.’
A final that will painfully be on Leinster’s doorstep next Saturday.