Dan Sheehan was in no mood for mixed messages this week. There are a hundred things to get right on Saturday against the Bulls but if it can be distilled down to one thing against an impressively aggressive side, it is to meet them with more than what they hit you with.
“I think everything comes off the back of physicality,” he says. “You can have the best game plan in the world and it won’t go well if your physicality is not right, whereas if you have a poor game plan and get your physicality right sometimes a lot of the time it works, so that’s definitely one.”
Set pieces and the Bulls’ powerful scrum will come into the equation but if Leinster can start against them as they did their semi-final against Glasgow, that will set a mood and the Bulls might just feel some of the frustration Leinster have recently experienced.
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There is no doubt the Bulls have come to Dublin to win the competition for the first time. They have lost two finals – against the Stormers in 2022 and Glasgow last season – whereas Leinster won it four years in a row but have had nothing to show for their efforts since 2021.
In a demonstration of intent, the Bulls flew all the players they could get on business class flights to Dublin on Sunday night. It sent the right message. Teams usually leave South Africa on a Tuesday night and arrive in Ireland on the Wednesday.
“Obviously, the Bulls have the best scrum in the league stats-wise,” says Sheehan. “They are very hard to play and I’m sure they will have a plan to disrupt our scrum and try and get over the top of us and we’ll do similar and bring energy too.
“It’s physical. You have to be brave and put yourself in front of these big fellas. They’ll try to test you. They’ll push buttons, it’s chat after the ball goes out. It’s rubbing your head in the dirt, but you know they get you both sides of the ball and I think people enjoy it.
“When you get it right it’s incredibly rewarding to get a win over a South African team. We’ve experienced it over the years, I think it’s a good battle and it’s a good spectacle and I hope there’s good excitement building through the week and we get a good crowd there.”
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Personally – a word the players generally shy away from using – Sheehan last week almost scored another hat trick and twice came within inches of completing it, only for a committed Glasgow defence to knock him back reaching for the line.
“If Jamo [Gibson-Park] wants to pick me out five times in a row ... I was almost wishing he didn’t towards the end of the first few minutes,” he says.
“That’s a part of my game that I enjoy, being part of the attack, carrying, our set-plays. It just falls that way.”
The sense is the Bulls will pose a different challenge than the European teams. Having lost to the South Africans in two semi-finals in recent years (2022 and 2024), Sheehan is well aware of this.
But he is confident that if Leinster focus on their own game, and play to their potential as a group – and that means being better than last week – they have enough to get over the line.
“We need to make sure we get our stuff right,” he says. “I think that’s probably where we fell off last time, not getting our own stuff right rather than dealing with some of their stuff.”
