Leo Cullen admitted he was not in a position to shed much light on the shoulder and calf injuries which forced Ryan Baird and James Lowe out of what he described as a satisfying 55-24 Champions Cup quarter-final win over Leicester at the Aviva Stadium.
“Ryan Baird (went off) with his shoulder, I’m not sure exactly, but we’ll see, hopefully he’s not too bad. But we’ll see how that settles down.
“James Lowe went off with his calf as well, so we will see how he is. That’s the challenge isn’t it? Physical games. You have to be able to deal with that. It’s a 23-man game and I thought our guys, the bench all added in their different ways, which was good. Overall we are pleased to be through to the next round.”
Cullen also intimated Robbie Henshaw’s departure was precautionary.
“Robbie was okay,” Cullen said. “He was just feeling a bit of tightness at half-time, so he was okay in terms of making the change.”
The Leinster head coach admitted that his team’s response to the Caelan Doris yellow card was the turning point of the match.
“If you wind the clock a bit further back, we were 17-3 up, Leicester get a penalty and kick into the corner, and off the back of it they end up scoring in the corner, suddenly at half time it’s 17-10.
“Definitely it made us quite quiet, and we have a good look at ourselves at half time, and then Caelan gets binned, and we were down to 14 men. But the response was really positive. We definitely focused the minds, we dealt with the maul off the initial lineout when they moved the ball wide, and we were able to counter ruck. We get a penalty, kick down that end of the field.
“I wasn’t sure how that maul gets collapsed, but they get the scrum, and our seven-man scrum ends up driving them off their own ball. That was a huge moment, and Ross (Byrne) kicks the penalty and we managed the period really well.
[ Leinster power home past Leicester to secure Champions Cup semi-final berthOpens in new window ]
“That 10-minute period of Caelan’s bin, and the 10-15 minute period after that was where the game went away from Leicester, I guess. Lots of pleasing things in the game, definitely things we can get better at, but we’re delighted to get through to the next round.
“The players should have a lot of confidence off the experiences they’ve built in the last few seasons. Just to be able to deal with whatever takes place in the game. We try to plan for lots of these scenarios, we dealt with that scenario well, which was good. Everyone is clear in terms of what we go to. Credit to the players, I thought they were excellent.
“It’s great, for the guys it’s a real privilege for us to be here. The beauty of playing on Friday is we get to watch the other three games now without the stress of having our game.”
Acknowledging that Leinster are an “outstanding side with outstanding coaches who have been together for years,” the Leicester head coach Richard Wigglesworth said: “The gulf is what you have available to spend.”
He also ventured: “It’s going to take a special team to beat them. They’ve only won it once in 11 years so there’s teams out there than can beat them and sometimes they beat themselves.”
