Seán Cronin says Toulon match is ‘do-or-die’ for Leinster

For all the flak coming their way, the funny thing is that if Leinster and their supporters were offered the choice at the start of the season of a Pro12 semi-final or a European Champions Cup semi-final, they’d assuredly have taken the latter.

Now that they’ve achieved something beyond their fellow provinces or any other Pro12 side, it’s worth noting they’ve pulled the short straw again in being drawn away to the back-to-back European and reigning French champions.

Be that as it may, it could also be that last Sunday’s defeat to the Dragons which all but extinguished their own hopes of three league titles in a row has served to concentrate minds in ending Toulon’s hopes of three consecutive European crowns.

“There’s no point beating around the bush, throwing out stuff here,” said Seán Cronin at Tuesday’s media briefing. “It is in the balance. Yeah, it is a massive game in terms of our season. It is totally out of our hands in terms of the playoffs in the league. This is probably do-or-die for us this weekend.”

‘Bad loss’

Admitting that those involved in the Dragons defeat returned “seriously deflated” Cronin added: “It was a bad loss, especially having been 22-8 up and, again, there was a worrying trend there that we got our last score on 51 minutes and didn’t score again. It was quite similar to the Bath game. Even though a lot of the players weren’t involved, there’s a trend there between both games.”

“The good thing is this is such a huge game. Lads will turn themselves around pretty quick to get up to what’s needed to try and prepare and get everyone on the same page for a massive week.”

Maintaining the theme, Cronin added:“We’re really looking forward to this week, building the intensity and preparation for what is going to be needed to get close to a result down there. They’re an awesome side, packed full of superstars, not just stars. It is about trying to get the preparation and detail done early on in the week so that we can build the intensity for what it’s going to take to win towards the back end of the week.”

Reference point

Nor perhaps is it any harm that the squad have the reference point of last season’s 29-14 beating at the Stade Félix Mayol at the quarter-final stage.

“The lads who weren’t involved had a look at them over the weekend, had a look at the game from last season. Two of their scores came from turnovers from us, and poor execution at the set-piece, so set-piece is going to be huge.They’ve star quality everywhere, threats at the breakdown, superb ball carriers. We have identified a few areas where we are looking to attack them. We think that if we can get them right, it will go a long way to getting a result down there.”

The most pertinent lesson, especially bearing in mind how Wasps scored twice against Toulon from working space out wide even from deep, and how Grenoble scored four tries last Saturday, is Leinster will have to be more ambitious than in last season’s game.

“We’re going down there to play. We’re going down there to give it a lash, so to speak. We’re going down to try and play the way we wanted to play and the way we have, at times, this season. We’re going to give it a right go, try and move the ball and put them under pressure.”

To this end, Cronin is in little doubt that Leinster will have to produce their best performance this season to date.

“I think, individually and collectively, some lads are going to have to play the best they’ve played this season, in a few seasons, if we are going to come anyway close to getting a result.”

Despite the absence of any benchmark performance this season, Cronin maintained: “Well look at the squad we have, look at the players there. We’ve gone to France and won before in massive games. You know they might have star quality, but so do we. So I think we’d back ourselves there.

“We’ve got some tremendous players, we’ve got some guys coming back who had game-time against Bath and are still trying to integrate back in terms of getting used to the systems and the way that Matt wants us to play. So we’ve confidence in ourselves. It probably is going to take one of our best games in a few seasons to get a win.”

Fighting talk at least, and realistic too.