Leo Cullen appeared reasonably confident that Johnny Sexton’s latest mishap would not jeopardise his chances of being fit for Ireland’s opening Six Nations game away to Scotland in a fortnight.
“It’s very early days yet. I don’t imagine so but I don’t know. We’ll wait and see. He’ll get scanned and he has all next week and the week after before he gets into that first game sowe’ll get the reports early next week.”
Sexton lasted barely the first quarter of the 24-all draw away to Castres which effectively earned Leinster a home quarter-final in the European Champions Cup.
“He just had a bit of stiffness in his calf,” said Cullen. “We’ll see how he is. Isa (Nacewa) went off as well. He had that dead leg from last week and it was just stiffening up bit by bit. We obviously have Rob and Ross there but it’s not ideal losing two key guys in the first 35 minutes. But I thought those guys came in and did pretty well.”
Nonetheless, another soft tissue for the Leinster and Irish number ten. “Yeah, just a bit of tightness. But again, when he feels that he was almost there making the call himself. And we obviously go with that. It’s obviously very early days, so we’ll see, get a scan and know exactly what extent there is there.”
As for Leinster’s erratic performance, in which they made ten line breaks to five but at the end were clinging on for a draw after being reduced to 14 men by the sinbinning of Mike McCarthy, Cullen said: “It was a very strange game. We started very well but lost our way.”
“The intent of their attack, I thought they were dangerous when they had the ball. We said it beforehand that they score a lot of points at home because they are comfortable playing unstructured. We sat back off them a little bit and a couple of missed tackles as well which gives them more momentum. We fought well to get back into the game after they took the lead. We made a lot of breaks but we just couldn’t find that support player. Hugely frustrating. For the players most of all.”
“We were just hanging in there for the last six or seven minutes as Castres were going for the win. The guys did very well to hold out. We’re probably lucky to get a draw, that’s the way I look at it. Very much a mixed bag.”
Test of nerve
This tough night had been a test of nerve for a youngish Leinster side, akin to when Leinster lost here in 2008, a result which condemned them to an infamous away quarter-final against Harlequins en route to winning the trophy for the first time.
“I’m just telling them about lessons learned back in 2008 in that very dressing room. Jeepers, it doesn’t feel like that long ago but the knock-on effect of that game where we don’t win the game and we were away in the quarter-finals against Harlequins in a very famous game, as it turned out to be.”
“We just need to understand the challenges of playing away from home and how different it is to playing in front of those home comforts. It’s very similar to what we talked about yesterday morning. For some of those younger guys, it’s a big step up and big learning for them. Away in France, it’s a tough place to come. Castres have won all their games at home bar one this season and beat some very, very good teams along the way.”
Jamie Heaslip, who had implored his players to “f***ing learn from this” in the post-match huddle, commented: “We wanted to go out there and ensure we could get a home-quarter-final, but we weren’t up to our standard. We didn’t play to the best and we gave Castres an opportunity to get into the game. They’re a good side and they took it.”
“We turned over the ball a few times, we weren’t accurate in our rucks but we showed great heart to come back into the game at the very end.
“We started the second-half very well, but then we had to fight off a big push by them in that last 30 minutes to get two points and end up on 23, on top of our table. We would have taken that at the start of the season.”
“It’s a little out of our hands in terms of whether we get a home quarter-final or not, but in this competition we’ve got to be ready to play home or away.”
Good to be back
After last season’s fall from grace, when losing five of six pool matches, nonetheless it was good to be back.
“It was tough last year watching the quarter and semi-finals, not getting out of our group and that hurt. We focused on working hard on our game, how we could turn the pressure on opposition and we’ve shown a big change in the way we’re playing. We’ve a lot of experience in the squad, but we’ve a lot of young guys coming through and there’s great competition which is adding to the squad.”
As for their preferred opponents, the three-time champion said: “To us it doesn’t really matter, every team in this competition is good. In my experience in the competition, once you get out of the group it’s anyone’s game, it’s tough. It’s not an easy competition to go all the way to the final and it’s even harder to win it.”
“So, we’re qualified now, we’ll watch the games over the weekend and see how it pans out but it’s a content changing-room. It’s out of our hands, but we’re happy and we’re looking forward to the quarter-finals.”
