Leicester lesson has served Leo well
Leo Cullen left Dublin for Leicester during the summer of 2005 on a mission of discovery that continues to change the landscape around Europe’s highest summit. The resumption of Champions Cup business next weekend puts the old Tiger back to where he was 17 years earlier for a renewal of the most enduring of Anglo-Irish rivalries. Surviving Saturday’s quarter-final against the Premiership’s top club will require Cullen to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself, a challenge fraught with danger at every twist and turn in what could be justifiably dressed up as a Test match in all but name.
No quarter-final is bigger than Leicester-Leinster, the mightiest of collisions between the hosts with the most in England all season and the visitors, whose four successive PRO12-14 titles bear testimony to their untouchable status as Celtic champions.
Cullen may not care to say so publicly but he will probably feel that an old score requires further settling. He has been along this particular road before, most notably the one which led to another quarter-final against the same opposition in the same competition. The occasion, in late April 2005, took place at a famous old venue which had by then been condemned for destruction. A crowd of almost 50,000 filled Lansdowne Road to the rafters, one of its last full-houses before the demolition squads reduced the old place to rubble.
By then, Leicester had bulldozed Leinster out of Europe, the margin of their victory, 29-13, confirming that Ireland’s capital province was still some way short of being good enough to join the European elite. For Cullen, the match would change his life. The Tigers had already earmarked him among the few second rows capable of filling the void left by Martin Johnson’s imminent retirement.
“When a club like Leicester makes you an offer, it’s something you can’t ignore,’’ Cullen said at the time. “I’ve had seven happy years at Leinster. I’d never given any serious thought of leaving until I was contracted by Leicester. Having played against them in the Heineken Cup quarter-final, I’ve seen at first hand how good they are.’’
Maybe so but by then, having won successive finals against Stade Francais in Paris and Munster in Cardiff, they were past their best. All too soon Leinster, taking off under the genius of Brian O’Driscoll, would pass the fading Tigers on their way down.
Cullen gave everything to Leicester for two seasons, playing almost 60 matches during a stay which finished with an English-European double at Twickenham. Eight days after 60,000 turned up to see the Tigers rout Gloucester in the domestic final, they lost the European version to Wasps, in front of more than 81,000.
A second-half substitute for Ben Kay, Cullen went home a wiser and, in terms of know-how, a wealthier man.
“While Leinster will consider this the acid test, the same applies to Leicester”
His boundless capacity for absorbing new ideas and reinforcing old values made the Leicester experience a precious one. Two years later he captained his native province to their first European title at the expense, ironically, of Leicester. As if to prove that it was no flash in the pan, Cullen won it twice more, in 2011 against Northampton at Cardiff and 12 months later by a record margin against Ulster at Twickenham.
Leinster’s fourth title, against Racing four years ago, earned their former captain a unique double; the first to win Europe’s supreme club crown as player and coach. Not for nothing does Stuart Lancaster describe the Irishman’s work ethic as ‘unbelievable’.
Cullen’s signing of the former England head coach as his No.2 has been acclaimed by a veritable galaxy of Leinster players from O’Driscoll down as an inspired piece of business. Between them they have succeeded in keeping the largest number of Test players housed under the same roof a step or two ahead of the pack.
While Leinster will consider this the acid test of their season, the same applies to their opponents. Tigers have won all 17 home matches in their den this season but they have not had to cope with an all-international team of Leinster’s calibre.
It is staggering that two decades have gone since they last conquered Europe, that this month marks the 20th anniversary of the day Austin Healey inspired the win over Munster in Cardiff, aided and abetted by Neil Back slapping the ball out of Peter Stringer’s hands before Ireland’s No.9 could feed a late scrum in front of the Leicester posts with a tight final in the balance.
Come Saturday evening they will need every trick in the book and perhaps a few more besides to resist the challenge of opponents masquerading as Ireland in blue. Steve Borthwick, the studious Cumbrian responsible for the restoring the Tigers as a fearsome force, will be aware that there is more to Leinster than 11 of the winning national XV at Twickenham in March.
He will spend the week thinking of nothing else but how to outwit his Leinster counterpart. In that respect, Borthwick will not be distracted by those who say he knows more than anyone about lineout geometrics and the mechanics of the scrum.
Borthwick will be the first to acknowledge Cullen’s mastery of both. The last time they went toe to toe, at Twickenham in February 2010, the Leinster second row came off the bench to help lock-up an Irish win, leaving Borthwick no option but to make the losing captain’s speech.
The only certainty about next weekend is that before it’s over, either the No.1 team in England or the No.1 team in Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Wales and South Africa will have been counted out of the semi-finals. And the Champions Cup will be all the poorer.