THE LEINSTER WAY. Is there such a thing?
Leo Cullen isn’t quite sure about that tag, but the province’s new head coach understands that there is an expectation from within Leinster and from outside as to the style of rugby that they should employ.
Michael Cheika and Joe Schmidt helped Leinster to three Heineken Cups from 2009 to 2012, with some of the best performances along the way featuring thrilling attacking rugby.
It would be foolish to ignore the other factors in the successes, including but not limited to set-piece solidity and a huge defensive work rate, but Leinster supporters and players became accustomed to their side controlling games and striking clinically in attack.
Cullen has come on board as head coach after two seasons under Matt O’Connor in which the eastern province played a style of rugby that was often hard to digest. While Cullen is realistic in his approach, he understands what the Leinster family wants to see.
“There’s definitely the ‘Leinster way’, or whatever people want to call it,” says Cullen, whose side face Edinburgh on Friday night (KO 7.35pm, TG4) in the first round of the new Guinness Pro12 season.
“I wouldn’t be as descriptive as that, but there’s a certain style of rugby that Leinster stakeholders want to see, I think.
“There is the winning part of that, but there’s also going out to play. We want to go out and play, we don’t want to try and defend for 80 minutes and take opportunities off turnover. We want to go out and have an intention to play the game.
“It’s about giving players a framework where they can adapt to certain situations on the day. Players enjoy structure, I think they’re able to flourish within a structure, so we need to have the clarity and understanding of roles that are important to all successful teams.”
Leinster looked to be without detailed structure much of the time under O’Connor, although the Australian pointed out with a degree justification that the coming and going of international players didn’t allow his ideas to fully bed in.
Even still, Leinster’s players went from the clarity and detail of Schmidt’s approach to O’Connor’s desire to see them get their heads up and play in a more unstructured manner.
One of the reasons it didn’t always work out as intended was that Leinster’s passing and rucking skills appeared to regress. As Cullen looks to lead the revival, he acknowledges the importance of those foundations.
“Definitely. They’re linked, because without good pass quality and without good carries into the contact area with good animation, it can be hard. If you’ve got slow ball, recycling at subsequent breakdowns becomes even more difficult.
“It always has that knock-on effect, whereas if you’re punching holes in opposition defences, suddenly it’s a lot easier to arrive at those breakdown situations and have accurate and positive results,” continues Cullen.
“That’s the challenge and all the time defences are getting better. It gets harder and harder to break teams down because they’re doing their homework.”
The intimations are that Cullen – whose impression on the squad in his new role as head coach has been positive this summer – intends for his team to play a more attacking style of rugby, with a great deal more structure.
That said, the former lock underlines that weather conditions as the season heads into the winter months mean his side must be able to adapt.
I would have a clear picture in my own head, but whether we can replicate that on the field is a very, very different thing!” says Cullen with a smile. “I have a clear vision of how we want to play.
“Obviously we have to be adaptable to a certain degree because that’s the nature of playing rugby in the Northern Hemisphere, experience would tell me. On any given day, you pull back the curtains and you’re not sure what you’re going to see outside the window.”
Nonetheless, Leinster stakeholders will be hoping they pull back the curtains on a more exciting version of their team in this new season.
