Leo Cullen: ‘We’re pleased with how our guys dug in against Connacht’

From last week’s feast tot his week’s famine. A one try to nil away win is the kind of stuff that supposedly wins championships and coming a week after the eight tries to five rollercoaster against the Sharks six days ago is all part of the URC’s rich tapestry — or at any rate the vagaries of the Irish climate.

In the event, after a lovely day in the west, the rain arrived sooner than forecast, so imitating Leinster’s win away to Ulster in another Irish derby in round three. The contrast was not lost on Leo Cullen.

“We started well. Then, jeepers, you’re looking out the window all afternoon thinking the weather is lovely here today and then you see the forecast, you kinda knew it was coming.

“We had some more chances to push on but couldn’t quite nail them. Then Connacht come back into the game.

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“It’s a very difficult place to come. There’s the crowd influence, they’re into everything, aren’t they? The Connacht players feed off that, so they made life difficult for us with their defence.

“You can see what it means to them. I think it’s a great reflection of provincial rugby in Ireland. I know the game is not a classic but there is great intent and desire to represent and give everything to your team. That’s the real positive.

[ Leinster roll up their sleeves against Connacht and show they can win ugly too ]

“The form book does go out the window a little bit because the players want to give it everything.

“We’re pleased with how our guys dug in over the course of the game.

“It’s one of those ones where you’re kinda like take your four points, get back on the bus and off you go again.

“We had a number of guys away as has been well documented but they’ll come back into the frame.

Cullen also said that Jack Conan, an early departure, James Ryan and Josh van der Flier all picked up knocks ahead of next Saturday’s marquee game against Munster at the Aviva Stadium.

“Jack, you see his eye had a cut in there. We’ll see how that settled down. James Ryan came off, just sort of twisted his knee awkwardly. Again, we’ll see how that is. Then Josh van der Flier, his ankle.

“Tadhg, that was the plan. Just get him through 40 minutes rather than get him to come back out again.

Andy Friend had to reflect even more ruefully on a fourth defeat in five games — all to last season’s quartet of semi-finalists — and a host of entries into the Leinster 22 which went abegging.

“There were a lot of good things out there in terms of our physicality, our intent, our desire to try and play a full 80 minutes. What’s let us down at the moment is just not being able to execute when we’re in the [opposition] 22. We need to get better at that.”

“You’re going up against one of the best teams in Europe here so you need to win physicality, you need to win accuracy. It was a pretty even contest in the physicality and we’re really proud of our blokes. They were immense out there, with their intent and desire to get bodies in front and to do damage. What we didn’t win was the clinical battle, and that’s where quality sides like Leinster, as much as you front up physically, if you don’t take your chances they’ll take theirs. And that’s what they did tonight.”

Even allowing for Leinster’s defence and the conditions, Connacht are lacking their normal attacking fluidity.

“Well, you’ve got to give credit to Leinster, defensively they’re a quality side. We’ll always be looking at every part of our game, whether it’s attack, defence, breakdown, maul — whatever it is. We’re always looking at that.

“Tonight we didn’t seem to have flow with the chances that we had to nail and that’s what probably frustrated us.”

While there was no shame in a 10-0 defeat by Leinster, it still leaves Connacht in serious need of a win at home to the Scarlets next Friday before facing the Ospreys in Swansea before the November break.

“Yeah, we don’t want to be the footy team that loses 10-0 and say we’re proud of that because it’s Leinster. We’re proud of the effort but we’re not pleased with the result and the fact that we left so many chances out there.

“I do think, and I do know, that our performances are getting better in every game. That was a better performance again but that’s another loss for us, so we’re one from five at the minute and we’ve got two games to finish this block and it’s important to get wins there.”