Isa Nacewa relishes running out in front of packed RDS

When Isa Nacewa decided a year ago to turn his premature retirement into a sabbatical and make a welcome return to Leinster, it was with Friday nights under lights like this he had in mind.

As Leo Cullen was describing his squad's excitement at the thought of a packed RDS and an Irish derby with a place in a final at stake, alongside him Nacewa was nodding his head in agreement.

In his first four seasons hereabouts, he was one of those who won three European Cup winners medals and then signed off with a Challenge Cup/league double; the latter completed with a 24-8 win over Ulster in the RDS sunshine as teammates and supporters serenaded him with that familiar chanting of his name. His hunger has not been sated.

Having played in 18 of their 22 games, the 33-year-old is Leinster's leading points scorer with 91 and is joint second in the Pro12 try-scoring table, one behind Matt Healy. It's as if he's never been away but it's made the prospect of a night such as this all the better.

“There’s no other place I’d rather be than running out in front of 19,000-plus people at the RDS,” said the Leinster captain. “It’s a special place in my heart and a year ago probably to the day I was sitting in New Zealand thinking about this moment.”

The welcome back into the fold and the unstinting support from the Leinster fanbase only re-affirmed the mutual respect, which is why no one is smarting more from what happened in Belfast three weeks ago.

“The fans have been unbelievable all season, and the loyal fans have travelled away. They were hurting just as much as we were after that defeat in the Kingspan only a few weeks ago. It’s not just for us, we’ve got to do it for them as well come Friday.”

Leinster may not have been setting the world alight this season, but Nacewa senses the same mixture of hurt and motivation is oozing through his team-mates. This is why he believes they can rise to the occasion.

Motivate

“It’s not hard to motivate any of the guys in the team sheet. There’s so much experience there and everyone is their own leader, and it’s about putting together a team performance and putting the team first more than anything. We’ve got the team there to do it and we’ve got the confidence over the last couple of weeks to build for Friday night.

“It’s an exciting end of the year, there’s so much competition for spots that it’s raised the level in training massively and given the coaches headaches.

“Everyone is fit and everyone wants to be part of the 23 and I think that alone is enough for everyone to bring an extra edge to training. As soon as there’s an extra edge to training it sharpens everyone’s skills up and everyone’s mind up, and that alone is the confidence we need building into the playoffs.”

In that sense, while Nacewa acknowledges that Ulster are playing a positive brand of rugby, and noted their haul of 16 tries in three games, he cites the win over Treviso two weeks ago as a riposte to their Kingspan loss and a potential turning point.

“Look, we needed a bloody good performance against Treviso and I think we took a few steps there. We went back to basics and it’s what we needed to do. There’s still a lot of improvement we can make and we’ve been looking at that over the last two weeks. Not having a game in the week of the European final gives you a chance to prepare early for this week. Once again it comes back to playoff rugby, who can execute under pressure and who can do the basics best, and this is what we’ve been building towards.”

In that sense, the result counts for everything, with style a sub-plot, as Nacewa constantly spoke of this being cup footie. “You’ve just got to win at the end of the day. It’s not about brand. It’s not about style in playoff footie, you’ve just got to win. And that last 20 minutes of any playoff match is the most crucial. That’s when you have to execute the best we have the whole season.”

Predictable

While Joe Barakat’s description of their back play as predictable is an additional source of motivation, it also happened to have a ring of truth, and the notion that Leinster might welcome a wet night brought a wry smile from their fullback.

“When we played them last time we clearly got beaten as a backline and it’s not nice to be on a hiding of 30 to six, so it’s enough motivation in itself,” he admitted.

“We tried to play against Treviso and Garry [Ringrose] was outstanding that day and gave us a little bit more confidence as a backline since then. Weather conditions? You’ve just got to deal with it on the day, no matter who we’re playing. We trained in the sunshine all this week and fingers crossed it’s there [this evening].”

But no matter the weather, whatever it takes to win is all that bothers Nacewa.