Sports

Leinster boss Leo Cullen: It’s a frustrated dressing room

Leinster boss Leo Cullen admitted that his dressing room was full of frustrated players despite their Champions Cup win over Clermont.

The URC league leaders have won all nine of their games this season, including back-to-back victories in Europe, but they were far from perfect in the 15-7 win over the Top14 outfit.

Garry Ringrose and Jordie Barrett scored tries in the opening half, while out-half Sam Prendergast, named man of the match, kicked five points as they backed up last weekend’s win at Bristol.

Cullen told RTÉ Sport: “A win, isn’t it? When you see these two fixtures at the start, and where they’re positioned, after the four Test matches, if someone said you were going to get nine points from the two games, you’d probably be quite happy.

“But when you score two tries in the first half of the second game having got five points last week, it sort of feels like there are things there that we can be better at.

“The dressing room is frustrated at how we performed today because we want to put on a better show in front of our home fans but at the same time, you’ve got to win against a team that is used to these sort of arm wrestles in the Top 14, where they’re currently sitting third.

“They’ve ton of experience. It’s good to get a win.

“The conditions deteriorated in the second half and it became quite difficult to play but at the same time, there’s lots of things that we can be better at, so it’s pretty mixed, I’d have to say.”

Leinster lost 40% of their lineouts, an issue that mirrored some of Ireland’s problems over the November window.

“Listen, it hasn’t been a major issue for us,” added Cullen.

“But yeah, it was poor today. You have a bad day, we’ll go back, work hard next week and whether you win or lose, you go through the process again and there’s plenty of good experience in there so they will figure it out, I’m sure.

“Because of the way they are coached, you go through the history of Christophe Urios teams, they will kick the ball off and pressurise lineout, which was what we expected.

“We didn’t see some of the pictures and then we got rattled, couple of throws go awry and combination of lots of different things and then suddenly you are losing seven lineouts or whatever it was.

“That sort of creeps into the rest of our game.”

While Prendergast, who made his international debut last month, cut a frustrated figure as he made his way off following three errors, Cullen was impressed with the 21-year-old’s outing on his 22nd Leinster appearance.

“I thought there were some really good touches, particularly in the first half, a lovely bit of play for Garry’s first try as an example,” said the head coach, whose side face Connacht next weekend in the URC.

“And again, you have a young 21-year-old 10 so he’s picking up experience there all the time. It’s fantastic.

“Sam is making great progress. Think to where he was this time last year, so many facets of his game that have kicked on to another level, and hopefully we’ll continue to see that progress now.”

Related Posts

“Estoy convencido”: la conmovedora comunicación de Rafael Nadal a Carlos Alcaraz

El extenista español le entregó un emotivo obsequio al joven deportista de Murcia. Carlos Alcaraz tuvo un año maravilloso en el tenis con sueños hechos realidad e increíbles logros…

“มาดามแป้ง” ตัดสินใจแล้ว หลังมีประเด็นกับ “อิชิอิ” เรื่องเดินขอบคุณแฟนบอล

“มาดามแป้ง” นวลพรรณ ล่ำซำ นายกสมาคมกีฬาฟุตบอลแห่งประเทศไทย ชี้แจงดราม่าเรื่องเดินขอบคุณแฟนบอลหลังเกม วันที่ 15 ธ.ค. 67 ความเคลื่อนไหวหลังเกมที่ ทีมชาติไทย เปิดบ้านเอาชนะ มาเลเซีย 1-0 เก็บ 6 คะแนนเต็ม จาก 2 เกม นำจ่าฝูง กลุ่ม เอ ศึกอาเซียน คัพ 2024 มีดราม่าเกิดขึ้นเมื่อ มาซาทาดะ อิชิอิ…

“อิชิอิ” ตอบสาเหตุเดินกลับห้อง แม้ “มาดามแป้ง-นักเตะ” ยังเดินขอบคุณอยู่ หลังเกมชนะ “มาเลย์”

อิชิอิ ตอบประเด็นร้อน เดินเข้าห้องแต่งตัว ไม่ขอบคุณแฟนบอลบริเวณลู่วิ่ง หลังเกมชนะ มาเลเซีย วันที่ 14 ธันวาคม 2567 หลังเกม ทีมชาติไทย เปิดบ้านชนะ มาเลเซีย 1-0 เก็บ 6 คะแนนเต็ม จาก 2 เกม นำจ่าฝูง กลุ่ม เอ ศึกอาเซียน คัพ 2024 โดยมีเรื่องที่…

Toulon v Glasgow Warriors: Winners and losers as Scott Robertson favourite shines while ex-England man rolls back the years

Following Toulon’s narrow and thrilling 30-29 win over Glasgow Warriors in France, here are our winners and losers from the clash. Winners Leicester Fainga’anuku The All Black who…

Exeter v Toulouse: Five takeaways as Antoine Dupont has us ‘reaching for the thesaurus’ in champions’ demolition of leaky Chiefs

Following a 64-21 victory for Toulouse over Exeter Chiefs in the Investec Champions Cup, here’s our five takeaways from the fixture at Sandy Park on Sunday. The top…

Prospecting for gold: Who stands out in Australia’s next generation of front-rowers?

While Australian rugby players and fans enjoy a well-earned break after another massive year, it would be fair to assume there is no rugby happening on this side…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *