Leo Cullen maintained his relatively becalmed demeanour from the pitch side TV interviews in the post-match media conference. Despite his side’s emphatic 41-22 win semi-final over five-time champions Toulouse, there was no swinging from the chandeliers.
The memory of last season’s final against La Rochelle remains too vivid to start feeling celebratory, and besides which there is the matter of next Saturday’s URC quarter-final against the Sharks back here at their home from home.
What did please Cullen was “the effort”, adding: “That’s the big thing. There were plenty of moments where the guys were clinical in terms of taking opportunities, which was pleasing as well.
“But it’s a semi-final,” he quickly added. “We were at this stage last year and you put in a big performance and then you’re just trying to manage things to a final.
“The season’s structure is different this year, so we’re into a (URC) quarter-final next week. We’ve got to get our heads around that pretty quickly.
“The most pleasing thing is to be in a final because that’s what it’s all about. For us, it’s, ‘Right, the job is done, that part of the job is done and let’s turn our attention to what the next challenge is going to be.’
“We’ll watch the game with great interest tomorrow and see what comes out of that. In the meantime, as coaches, already towards the tail end of this week, you’re turning attention towards the Sharks and now the players come in on Monday morning, review the game, and take the learning from it, things we can do better and there are some excellent parts of that performance.
“We just look forward to the next challenge. We know we’ve got a quarter-final but we’ve never really had a sequence of games quite like this. At the very start of the season, you’re looking at the prospect of being here. Even the fact that we’re playing a quarter-final here as well because Bruce Springsteen is playing in the RDS, which is great in many ways because it makes it tidy.
“We’re back here next week, you’ve got that type of battle ritual in many regards. Back to the question, what’s the most pleasing thing? To win the semi-final and be in a final. But it’s trying to manage the next little period that will be the key bit.”
[ Leinster make light work of Toulouse to book place in Champions Cup finalOpens in new window ]
What clearly did please the Leinster head coach was the way his side coped without some frontline absentees and in producing this performance in front of such a huge home crowd.
Expressing the belief that the quad strain which Robbie Henshaw sustained in training last Monday and was “nothing too major”, Cullen hailed the “excellent” performance of Charlie Ngatai in his first outing since January 7th after recovering from a hamstring injury.
“I thought he was excellent for the 50-odd minutes that he played. Some really big moments. That 50-22, that poach turnover, some big defensive plays as well. He was really strong in contact. Huge credit to him and credit to the rehab team to get him back in good shape.
“You go through the season, there’s plenty we’ve had to deal with at different stages and different points. Relying on the group and working hard for each other. You saw plenty of that out there today.
“It was a great response from the supporters as well. You see that connection. That’s the really special stuff, isn’t it? For the supporters they’re seeing moments from players live, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it. You see it at the drive into the ground coming down Serpentine (Road) and turning past the hotel there, seeing the blue flags.
“Hopefully we see that next week as well. We might tweak the team a little bit next week because I think we just need to keep that freshness there and whoever’s there, let’s hope we get a big crowd again.”
This being the first of potentially five knock-out games in succession at the Aviva should they reach both finals, Leinster are in the high wire stage of their season, with the scope for both glory and, as they know from last season, disappointment still acute.
This is particularly relevant for Cullen given the turnover in personnel at the end of every season means no squad is every quite the same again.
“Some players won’t play for Leinster again that are in our group and we had a couple of retirements early in the season as well so it’s really just about enjoying the time together now.
“As a player you never get this time back. So it’s about trying to maximise everything in this window.
“We talked about a five-week window. Now, it’s a four-week window left, we hope. At least we have three weeks to look forward to. It might be two games but it’s three weeks so it’s about trying to enjoy our time together.”
Not surprisingly, James Ryan maintained the tone. The captain was still particularly miffed about the concession of a maul try in the last play of the game in overtime, even though it had little meaning for the 46,000-plus attendance which had already begun to file away.
“We obviously conceded over 20 points so defensively we’ve just go to keep getting better. It was disappointing to concede that maul try there at the end and the set piece is just so important at this point of the competition, particularly in the knockout European games so we’ve just to iron out those couple of things.
“We can’t give teams access through the lineout drive or the scrum. Yeah, look, lots of positives as well that we’re happy with but as Leo said it’s an important part of the season now and the games just keep coming. We’ve just go to dust ourselves off now, review the game and takes the lessons from it because if we want to go one step further, we’ve got to improve definitely.”
