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Irish Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Gerry Thornley: The true story of Leinster in the 2020s is one of remarkable success
In the decade between 2012 and 2021, Mayo reached six All-Ireland football finals and lost them all – three of them by a single point and one of those after a replay. Including the draw in 2016, their average losing margin in seven finals was less than 2.5 points. Some people apparently regard them as chokers, which is a joke really. As John Barclay said on Premier Sports last Saturday, losing a semi-final is possibly preferable to doing so in a final. In truth, for that Mayo team to keep picking themselves up off the canvas after each bitter disappointment in order to start all over again in pursuit of their holy grail shows incredible strength of character. It would be so much easier to give up and walk away. Three of their six losses were against Jim Gavin's six-in-a-row side, widely considered to be the best Gaelic football team of all time. Nobody pushed that Dubs side harder than Mayo. No other county came close. Yet they received nothing like the same scrutiny. By comparison, they were all given a free pass. Yes, you can see where this is going. At the recent Rugby Players of Ireland awards ceremony, Andrew Trimble, in his inimitably laconic way, asked Mayo native Caelan Doris if he had passed on the curse. To which Doris replied he has actually won at Croke Park. READ MORE Perhaps there is a slight irony in Doris, Jack Conan and Cian Healy finally lifting Leinster's first trophy in four seasons there last Saturday after an emphatic 32-7 win over the Bulls . Again, though, some jokers still regard this Leinster side as chokers. This is because, since their 2021 Pro14 success behind closed doors, Leinster had lost three successive Champions Cup finals against La Rochelle, in Marseille and Dublin, and Toulouse, in London. In May, they added a Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton at home. The province had also lost three successive URC semi-finals. The margins in those seven defeats were: three points, one, nine (having finished level after 80 minutes), three, one, one and five. In every one, the game was in the balance until the last play of the 80 minutes. Leinster's Johnny Sexton talks to referee Wayne Barnes during the 2022 Champions Cup final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Leinster certainly haven't been awash with luck. They'd have won the 2022 Champions Cup final in Marseille but for Wayne Barnes penalising Ross Molony in the jackal on the premise that Michael Alaalatoa hadn't rolled away. No amount of replays will convince Molony or this columnist that the Leinster prop hadn't sufficiently manoeuvred himself out of the way. One final where the 'choker' tag might have some validation is the 27-26 loss to La Rochelle in 2023. Leinster had led by 17-0 and then 23-7, but they didn't score a point after the 46th minute. That statistic and zero second-half passes between the entire backline outside Ross Byrne was evidence of how they stopped playing. Still, that was Ronan O'Gara's La Rochelle team at their irresistible best. They deserved credit for the comeback, which had shades of Leinster's fightback in the 2011 decider against Northampton. In the pulsating 2024 final at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Leinster came within a whisker of sealing a win in the 80th minute via Ciarán Frawley's drop goal attempt. He nailed two against the Springboks in Durban a few weeks later. Again, they received hardly any of the 50-50 calls from Matthew Carley, most notably when identical offences by Anthony Jelonch and James Lowe – in slapping the ball over the touchline – received contrasting punishments. Toulouse were widely acclaimed as the best French club side ever, with the sport's greatest player as their captain and talisman. Further putting that epic 2024 final in London into perspective, five weeks later Toulouse beat Bordeaux Bègles by 59-3 at the Stade de France, a record winning margin for a final in the history of the French Championship. Only one other team has reached three successive Champions Cup finals but, naturally, Leinster receive little or no credit for that, or for much else. In the last four seasons they've won 91 matches, drawn one and lost 20. In the Champions Cup they've won 27 out of 31 games. They've put 40 on Toulouse (twice) and La Rochelle, whom they've also beaten twice in a row away. They've entertained royally, played some thrilling rugby and scored oodles of great tries. Leinster's Andrew Porter celebrates with champagne in the dressing room after the URC final. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho In the aftermath of Saturday's final, head coach Leo Cullen – who might well have considered stepping down had Leinster not won – wondered aloud as to what constitutes success or failure. The line between them is not so blurred anymore, and in Leinster's case it is seemingly judged solely by whether they win the Champions Cup or not. Hence, the one that got away is this year's defeat against Northampton, one of only two semi-final losses suffered by home sides in the last decade. As Tommy O'Brien admitted – although Ryan Baird refutes the theory utterly – Leinster were 'flat' in their ensuing games but rediscovered their buzz in the last fortnight when convincingly dethroning the champions and then their nearest challengers, who beat them in last season's semi-finals. That still doesn't completely ease the pain from that Northampton defeat, which has been deemed a non-show but was perhaps more accurately a delayed show in what was one of the games of the season. It must still bemuse Leinster as much as us, and in the absence of a Antoine Dupont-less Toulouse, is compounded by Bordeaux Bègles awaiting in a Cardiff final and thoughts of what might have been. Ultimately, though, Leinster won one of only two trophies on offer and reached the semi-final of the other. They also won 25 of 28 matches. They earned a half-dozen home play-off ties to further swell the coffers. They provided a record dozen Lions. Season ticket holders are up to 15,000 ahead of returning to an expanded RDS. With any other club, region or province, that would be considered a successful season. Anyone other than Leinster. The URC has never been harder to win and yet no team has ever been more deserving champions. Maybe it's time they cut themselves a little slack. And maybe it's time we did too. gerrythornley@
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Croke Park filled with relief and joy after Leinster shake off ‘nearly men' tag to win URC
Take a bow again, Leinster . The United Rugby Championship , in all its many iterations over the last quarter of a century, has never been harder to win, and yet never have there been more convincing and deserving champions. Having topped the regular-season table, when scoring the most tries and points while conceding the least, Leinster made it 18 wins in 21 matches by applying the coup de grace with a commanding 32-7 win over the Bulls to properly mark Saturday's historic final at Croke Park. The South Africans had finished second and were one of the only two teams to have beaten Leinster, thanks to a last-minute scrum penalty against an understrength side at home last March. But ultimately, Leinster were first and the rest nowhere as they banished some of the demons generated by three final losses and four semi-final defeats across both competitions – the URC and Champions Cup – in the last four seasons. Judged by the highest standards, which Leinster set themselves and almost everybody else sets for them too, they'll still have a few regrets about the season – well one game anyway . However, this emphatic triumph was a mighty weight off their shoulders. READ MORE 'It's great to get back to winning ways and to win at home at an iconic stadium,' said captain-for-the-day Jack Conan, reflecting the sense of relief, satisfaction and joy among players, backroom staff and supporters alike after he shared the trophy lift with Caelan Doris and Cian Healy. So many lads here have never won anything for Leinster — Jack Conan 'Does it mean more than the other ones? Look, we just take it day by day,' added Conan. 'But yeah, it's an unbelievably long year because you've got to go to South Africa after we've just finished up the Six Nations, so it's tough.' Indeed, compared to the scattered sprints of the Champions Cup, the URC is more of a 10-month marathon and thus requires more of a squad effort. Leinster used 58 players in the course of their campaign and Conan made special reference to those who rolled up their sleeves against the Bulls in Pretoria and when beating the Sharks 10-7 a week after that defeat to the Bulls. Leinster's Dan Sheehan and Ross Byrne celebrate with the URC trophy. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho What's more, they also depowered the Bulls on Saturday and put them to the sword despite Jamison Gibson-Park joining Tadhg Furlong, Doris and Hugo Keenan among the absentees. 'I know a lot of them lads weren't playing today,' said Conan, and in fact 17 of the matchday squad in Durban were not involved in this final, 'but we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those lads and what they did over there. 'So many lads here have never won anything for Leinster. They've won a load of stuff for Ireland, they've won Grand Slams, Triple Crowns and things, but never won anything for Leinster. We wanted to make it a special day for them, for the lads that are leaving, and fundamentally we just wanted to perform. 'Whether we won by one point, or whatever the scoreline at the end, we just wanted to perform and we did that. I think that's the most pleasing thing. We've been building nicely the last few weeks, and to go out and properly put on a performance today is incredibly special.' One of those finals and three of the semi-finals had been lost at home and the latest of them – six weeks ago against Northampton – weighed heavily. Hence this trophy lift, lap of honour and a second trophy lift in the Hogan Stand – at the prompting of their media manager Marcus Ó Buachalla – was all the more joyous given Leinster were lifting their first silverware in front of a home crowd since 2018. The 2019 title was won in Glasgow and the two that followed were behind closed doors, which rather took the joy out of it. Maybe that's partly what prompted a healthy turnout of 46,127 after just six days' ticket sales. It eclipsed the previous record attendance for a final in Ireland when Leinster completed the double by beating the Scarlets in the Aviva in 2018. 'They are the memories really,' said head coach Leo Cullen of the post-match celebrations in front of their supporters, and he paid particular thanks to families and friends. Leinster's Jimmy O'Brien, Jordie Barrett and Rabah Slimani celebrate. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho 'The players and the staff, we're in our own little world, it's the families that have to deal with the brunt of it. The majority of the players are home-grown talent, it is not like a normal professional franchise where people are brought in from wherever, and they probably get it in the neck the most. 'The people [I'm] most happy for is the family and friends who support the players and staff associated with the team through thick and thin. At least it wasn't one of those 'hold on', one-score games at the end, so they were probably able to enjoy the moment. Listen, that's what sport is about, isn't it. It's bloody hard to win anything.' He knows more than anybody. Cullen took the brunt of the flak for three trophyless seasons and that Northampton defeat, as well as dealing with its implications, along with injuries and the sideshow of a dozen Lions. After each of the five ensuing wins, that Northampton scar was referenced. 'You don't get any bonus for winning well,' he said. 'We started off the season of knock-out games winning a game here very well (62-0 v Harlequins), then won a game six days later very well (52-0 v Glasgow), then it's not that the wheels fall off, but you lose a very tight game and then have to deal with the fallout from that. 'But that's just the way it is, that's just part of the territory. That's professional sport, that's the nature of it. It is what it is.' Those other semi-final and final losses were also in his thoughts. 'We've lost in different ways, at the death, after extra-time, but you've just got to keep putting ourselves in that position and keep pushing the boundaries of what we do. You get criticism when you lose, [but] it still doesn't take away from what, personally speaking, I love doing. 'Pressure is great; it's part and parcel of sport. It's a great way to feel alive, we're lucky to be involved in it,' he said, before suggesting that coping with the high expectations is perhaps not always so great. 'Keep the abuse coming,' said Cullen cheerily. 'We don't mind. Thick skins.'
Irish Times
14-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Leinster Jack Conan relishes ‘incredibly special' moments at Croke Park following URC win
Jack Conan described sharing the URC trophy lift with Caelan Doris and Cian Healy as 'incredibly special' after Leinster's 32-7 win over the Bulls in the final at Croke Park. The Leinster captain also credited their media manager Marcus O'Buachalla for the idea of paying homage to All-Ireland winning teams by conducting a second trophy lift in the Hogan Stand. 'It's not something you could ever dream of when you were growing up, or even in the last few years because obviously it has been so long since we had played here as a club,' said Conan after Leinster's fifth and most significant win of their five visits to the iconic home of the GAA. 'So, it's not something that was ever you on your radar but it's just fantastic. I know it wasn't full today but there were 46-odd thousand people and we could feel every single one of them. READ MORE [ URC Grand Final: Five things we learned as Leinster end trophy drought after four years Opens in new window ] 'We could hear their voices and they got behind us. They stayed after the final whistle for us to do a lap. One of the big reasons we do what we do is to give back to the people who come to support us through the good days and the bad days. 'It's incredibly pertinent that we give them something to celebrate. I think everyone is just elated.' Conan said he had 'absolutely no idea' whose idea it was before venturing: 'Marcus O'Buachalla! He needs a shout out at least once a week!' He added: 'I was conscious of the lads trying to lift up my shirt and making an absolute mug of me so I was tucking that in. Leinster's Andrew Porter celebrates with champagne in the dressing room after the game. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho 'Look, to be on the Hogan Stand to lift a trophy with all your mates, family, loved ones, it's incredibly special and something that will live long in the memory. 'I had a few words as Gaeilge but I was told my pronunciation was all over the place, so they told me not to do it! I don't think they wanted me to do a speech. I was told less is more!' Asked if the squad had emphasised the need to mark the occasion with an 80-minute performance, Conan said: 'No. We went the complete opposite way. We spoke about taking it moment by moment, being where your feet are and not getting ahead of ourselves. 'We knew it would be unbelievably physical. There's no point focusing on the bigger pressure, it's on the here and now. I thought we dealt really well with how direct they were at the end of the first half. They were attacking our line hard and we're holding them out and some of those shots were incredible,' said Conan, admitting the two extended goal-line defensive sets leading up to the interval which kept their 19-0 lead intact typified the team's performance. 'It boils down to man on man and wanting to put your head where you wouldn't put a shovel. Getting off the line and trying to whack people. 'You can lose focus a little bit and think about rugby, all the different parts of it, but it's a physical game, and what we teed ourselves up for all week was the physical battle, and I think we did that throughout.' Leo Cullen said this triumph was for everybody in the organisation and especially the 46,127 in attendance, which was a record for a final in Dublin. Leinster's RG Snyman and Jamison Gibson-Park celebrate after the game. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho 'It was an amazing atmosphere out there today. Normally when you're in the Aviva, you're in a glass coaches' box and you're way off getting the sense of the occasion. Two Wicklow lads here getting involved in a final at Croke Park, a rare sight,' Cullen added, referencing himself and Conan. 'It's a very difficult competition to win, just the nature of the way the season is and there's a lot of great teams involved. The South African teams have been an amazing addition to the tournament. The Bulls are a great team.' Leinster's win earned them a first trophy in four seasons and after losing three finals and four semi-finals since last winning the Pro14 behind closed doors in 2021. 'Is your season, when you get to a final, a success or a failure,' asked Cullen rhetorically. 'Unfortunately, you guys, the way you write, the losers of a final suddenly are failures, whereas you get to the last day of the competition, I think you need to celebrate the two teams that are in the final. 'Obviously we've been on the flip side of that in the past. Does that deem us failures? I personally don't think it's a failure. We win today, it's great but we'll move on to the next challenge. We'll watch the guys that are on tour with Ireland and the Lions. That's a big part of what we want to try and do as well, push guys on to play at the next level. 'The rest of us will take a break, put the feet up for a while and spend time with family and friends.' Leinster head coach Leo Cullen with Jordie Barrett after the game. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho For his part, the Bulls' World Cup winning head coach Jake White heaped praise on Leinster in admitting they were eminently worthy winners on the day and champions over the season. 'This is not a normal team,' said White of Leinster. 'I made a note that they were 19-0 up and they bring on RG Snyman. It's just a different league. Leinster fans have been waiting for that 40-minute first-half performance all season. They are well coached and I don't know them all but I met Josh van der Flier and he's world-class and world-class as a person. 'They are the benchmark and have been for four years. That's our third loss in a final and now I have to try and find out how to turn silver into gold.' White also cited the 'seamless' change Leinster made at scrumhalf by bringing in Luke McGrath for Jamison Gibson-Park, and noted how Leinster targeted a Bulls' area of strength, their scrum. 'That's what international teams do,' said White, adding: 'We've been in three finals and that was by far the toughest final. That was another level up. That was another level up. That was Test rugby.' On how quickly Leinster realigned in defence and attack, White remarked: 'It was like everything was in fast forward. For our players they saw a different, organised tempo than they've seen all season. That's a phenomenal team.
Irish Daily Mirror
13-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Leinster are one win from glory, one loss from the sky falling on their head
Leinster are in the dock at Croke Park, on the northside too, standing accused of not being able to lift that having repeatedly got on-site during four Champions Cup and three URC raids they emerged empty-handed, without any of the silverware or gold medals on offer. Leinster, the club, may have seven of the 10 letters in the word larcenists but, damningly, none of the sticky fingers associated. Welcome to the 2025 URC Grand Final where if Leinster come up empty-handed again, there will be blood on the coaches' dance floor and somebody - either the most successful club coach in Irish history or a double-RWC winning one - will be job-hunting. This is, remember, a club with a dozen 2025 Lions and, notwithstanding Caelan Doris, Will Connors, Robbie Henshaw being injured and ex-Lion Cian Healy retiring, have another dozen players on the Ireland summer are bolstered by a close to €1m package funding All Black Jordie Barrett, double-Rugby World Cup winner RG Snyman and French propping legend Rabah Slimani.A Leinster who may catch all the plaudits, be greatly admired and much feted from near and far, do well off their budget when it is compared to Top 14 clubs and have a wonderful, working, pathway/Academy who, come the pointy end of the season, have repeatedly dropped the ball in semi-finals and finals. It's a mystery. Call Hercule Poirot even if he is Belgian, phone Humphrey Bogart's private eye Philip Marlow, or send for Sherlock Holmes or, how about, his now much-feted teenage sister Enola Holmes if you like and ask them to ask what they make of the puzzle. A good place fore them to start maybe wondering whether Leinster are suffering from being 'Club Ireland'. There is little disguising the Leinster collective having morphed into the Ireland World Cup/Six Nations team with former Leinster Academy man Tadhg Beirne and three southern hemisphere products operating out of Connacht in Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham tagged this translates to, intentionally or not, their seeing club rugby as a way of getting fit and peaking for international rugby then God only knows how they are mentally juggling Leinster-Ireland-Lions. The sheer joy of the Northampton players when they defeated Leinster in the recent Champions Cup semi-final carried over into the after-match proceedings - they were verily bouncing off the walls. A joy rarely seen from Leinster wins these days, there seems to be an auto-pilot in the mix. Whether they celebrate Leinster wins the way they celebrate Ireland wins is worth asking. Leinster assistant coach Jacques Nienaber is the most celebrated Defence Coach in the world. He was Rassie Erasmus's second-in-command for the 'Boks RWC 2019 win and Head Coach for the 'Boks RWC 2023 famously once said his coaching system would take 14 games to bed-in but this was at the start of last if you believe there is no such thing as a 'good' missed tackle or if, being less didactic, believe there is a problem with repeated missed tackles and that there is a certain amount required to be made in each game, then don't get into an argument with Nienaber. Leinster's three quarter-line for this evening's game has Tommy O'Brien who makes 58 percent of his tackles, Ringrose 51 per cent, Barrett 74 percent and James Lowe's 40 percent. This evening's full-back Jimmy O'Brien has a 79 percent tackle completion rate and he may be needed not least as the much criticised defensively Sam Prendergast brings a 50 percent completion rate to the party (Ross Byrne's is 88 percent!).There is a potential explanation of the Northampton loss in there. The Saints had a winger score a hat-trick, a flanker going blind-side and skating past the tackles. 37 points is a helluva lots of points to concede, to have to overhaul in a knockout game. At the same time apologies, that's a negative interpretation as to how rugby should be is a 2025 Lion, the best attacking no13 in Europe if not the world and he will be playing outside the best no12 in the attacking threat is ever-present, not least for his ability to keep the ball alive with inventive, clever offloads and his auxiliary kicking is a feature while Prendergast has a prodigious eye for a set of bigger-picture figures that have to be balanced, weighed up with, say, missing every second or third they are figures suggest that firstly Leinster are flat-track bullies, certainly against the bottom six/seven/eight URC outfits. And secondly, given their quality players can hold onto the ball, that they are very difficult to overhaul once they are this: The IRFU allowed a failed Ireland RWC 2019 to be glossed over when their official report blamed 'Performance Anxiety' - possibly the most infantile concept since nappies. Professional sportsmen are paid to 'perform' and on the back of those performances are in a salary meritocracy. Perform well, get more money, get picked again. How did the Performance Anxiety XV get to the top of the log in the first place?But if there is such a thing as Performance Anxiety, Leinster must have it not so much inadvertently picked as a virus but from the idea of it actually existing. Once you convince yourself it exists, it is too handy a crutch, an easy explanation. A little more practical self-scrutiny might help. Memo to Leinster committee in advent of losing this final, buy the players mirrors for Christmas so they can look at themselves in it. Because, make no mistake, repeated failure to win a tournament is building and building and contrary to accepted common sense. The players are not bad players, the collective have gotten it right most of the time and are able to get themselves into position to win a result the spotlight is turning more and more on coach Leo Cullen and assistant there something fundamentally wrong, not so much with selection based on empirical evidence that the player should have the jersey, but a flawed understanding of their individual make-ups in pressure is, for instance, under IRFU/Andy Farrell instruction that, once both are fit, to pick James Ryan and Joe McCarthy ahead of Snyman; he has more leeway with Barrett but still had to fill a quota for the Henshaw-Ringrose pairing. Moreover Cullen was told that the onus was on him to pick Prendergast this season, to bring him on with Ireland in mind, have him ready for the November series and first-choice by the Six is unlikely Cullen could have jettisoned Prendergast for the final had he wanted to but it is telling Ross Byrne is on the bench in a five-three split and not Ciaran Frawley or Jamie Osborne in a has the option to withdraw Prendergast if he wishes; if this isn't going well in the first-half, it will be a measure of this current management's decisiveness as to when they start to change the as it mightn't need Poirot, Marlow, Sherlock and Enola to detect, that really would be the point where the sky was falling on their that's a bit panicky, premature, apologies as Leinster take the field as massive favourites to win a game against a Bulls side who are an extremely blunt instrument and have very little matching the skill-levels and experience the Blues possess. Leinster can be backed at 1/5 - and most likely can only defeat themselves. Performance Anxiety, you ol' ambusher...
RTÉ News
10-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Momentum can carry Leinster past Bulls to happy ending
Leinster will have one more shot at silverware this season as they take on the Bulls in a clash of the two hemispheres in the BKT URC final this Saturday evening. For some it won't offer enough redemption and the URC championship is hardly adequate success considering the investment and improvements that they've made in their squad to get over their Champions Cup hurdle. Yet, losing the URC would be an even bigger disaster for this star-studded and well-resourced side. Getting some silverware in the cabinet is vital. Otherwise a golden generation of Leinster talent would quite literally have nothing to show for it. Winning a competition like the URC would offer a step in the right direction and would begin to counter the psychological negativity that has been circling the province. It would at least reduce the target on their back somewhat from an external perspective, but more importantly, it would give the players and staff a positive and a much-needed success. While Leinster are star-studded, they're dealing with some big injury battles, not least their captain and previously ever-present talisman, Caelan Doris. Tadhg Furlong (above) is another colossal loss when it comes to the big games and others will have to make big moments happen for Leo Cullen's men. The Bulls travel to Dublin with a good record against Leinster. They're also competing in their third final in four years after losing out last year to Glasgow and to the Stormers in the inaugural URC season. They will be hoping to take advantage of Furlong's likely absence with the strength in their scrum. If they hit the right note from the outset, they could make it a very long and difficult evening for the hosts' setpiece. The Bulls have their own injury concerns, Cameron Hanekom has been a hugely physical asset in their attack and will miss the game. Their physicality is one of their typical South African attributes, but they will have to learn to temper it to stay within the confines of the laws as they endured three yellow-card periods against the Sharks last week. Discipline of that nature won't cut it against Leinster, who would open them up if they concede a numerical advantage at any stage of the game. The beauty of the Bulls is that they don't solely rely on their physicality. As soon as the game breaks up, Johan Goosen and Willie le Roux can expose Leinster-like defences with their kicking game. Le Roux has caused many upsets with his crossfield kick passes. Even Sebastian de Klerk kicked a crossfield kick to the opposite wing to send Canan Moodie in for a score against the Sharks last week. He capitalised on a weak Jaden Hendrikse exit and chose to kick pass to Moodie for a lethal transition try in the first half. That's some of what the Bulls can do, but if they're not disciplined with their play or their penalty count, then they'll give Leinster too much control in Dublin. Despite being dominated by Leinster last week, Glasgow exposed the potential opportunities in the Leinster defence. George Horne scored a great try through his support play after a deep attack got to the edge of Leinster's defence and their hard close on the edge meant that the kick in behind can often unlock that type of defence. However, it's one thing previewing Leinster and pointing out the potential frailties. It's another thing altogether to execute when Cullen's side control so many aspects of the game too. Jordie Barrett (above) will be playing his last game for the province. He's been in unstoppable form since his arrival and there's no doubt he'd like to sign off with a winning feeling. The Kiwi's physicality and handling in the middle of the pitch has often provided the spark and difference for Leinster. Tommy O'Brien is probably their next in line when you're naming in-form players. His speed and contact skills mean that he's never too far from the last pass when Leinster are scoring tries lately. The winger, who will tour with Ireland this summer, is playing with a hunger that Leinster are benefitting from too, chasing kicks with tackle and ruck pressure that is leading to turnovers. There might even be room for subjective bias as Ross Byrne potentially lines out for his final game in the blue of Leinster. With the physicality of the Bulls, there might not be space for Byrne in a 5:3 split on the bench. It'll be interesting to see how selection goes for him on Thursday considering the amount he's given to the province. Croke Park will be the venue once again. Their latest attendances have been hugely underwhelming, which would make you question the need for a stadium of that capacity. However, the lure of competition success may add some allure to this fixture. One thing is for sure, if Leinster can build on last week's performance they'll be back to their rip-roaring best and should see off the Bulls to win their first silverware since this iteration of the competition has begun.
