LEINSTER HAVE been here before, and the experience of last year, when back-to-back finals followed after a home semi-final victory in the league, ought to stand to them. But the key difference is that Leinster will have a seven-day turnaround for the Heineken Cup final and an eight-day turnaround for the Pro12 decider, rather than the other way around, as was the case last year.
There’s little doubt Joe Schmidt would have preferred the latter. “I know we had the Friday semi-final last year and into the Saturday final last year, and even then we got a couple of guys back to do the captain’s run and that was it.
“One of those was Brian O’Driscoll again, Richardt Strauss limped off and didn’t train for the week, and that eight-day turnaround just gave us enough time to get those guys on. Yes, we’re on the same schedule, even better we’re at home for the Pro12 final and really good news for us is that the soccer lads are in town on the Saturday night so they’ve had to push the final out to Sunday and we will get that eight-day turnaround post-Heineken Cup which is great.”
There was a hint of irony in that observation, as Schmidt is left with less than ideal preparation for the biggest match of their season and even less of an idea as to his starting XV.
“We’ll see who can train on Monday, it’ll be a bit of a walk-through put together against Ulster. Tuesday we’ll try to train a bit and really up-tempo training will be on Thursday.
“Again it’ll have to be fairly short and sharp because you’re playing two days later. It’ll be the fittest team probably, it’ll be guys who are able to train by Thursday at this stage. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you who that’s going to be.”
There was implied criticism of the laxity toward Glasgow players for not releasing after the tackle, but Schmidt also conceded: “To be honest, we try to control as much of it as we can because in the end you want to be making your own decisions and forcing the tempo of play rather than rely on somebody to make those decisions. We take the responsibility for that, we need to work even harder at the breakdown to get that tempo.
“Glasgow . . . threw bodies into the breakdown, it was a strategy that worked for them and I just hope Ulster weren’t watching.”
As for whether Leinster or Ulster were better served by their contrasting build-up to next Saturday’s final, Shane Jennings was unsure. “It’s hard to know, I’ll tell you next week. I’ve been in situations where we’ve played against teams who’ve had a couple of weeks off and won Heineken finals, I’ve played in situations where you’ve played week-in, week-out leading up to finals and won. Personally, I like to play, a lot of the lads like to play.
“It showed tonight we need to improve on a lot of stuff and it was a good run-out, they’re physical at the breakdown and hopefully we can pick up on a few things, learn from our mistakes and that will benefit us going into next week.
“Whenever you see, not just Leinster do well, but when you watch other teams do well it’s always the ball carrier who makes an initial bust, you’re immediately on the front foot and defenders are chasing their tails,” added Jennings. “That will give us confidence, we’ve shown we can do it but we’ve got to show we can be more consistent because the defence we’re coming up against next week is going to be an awful lot tougher and they can defend for phases upon phases. Being honest on the ball carrier and being honest on those first two guys into the ruck.”
