Leinster’s Jacques Nienaber focuses on province’s winning mentality despite close call

There is a constant rhythm to Jacques Nienaber’s give-and-take over Leinster’s even, uneven performance. On the one hand, the team needs to improve in many areas, and on the other Northampton are a fabulous side. On the one hand, Northampton are a team that can score freely against the best but on the other hand, Leinster won the match.

For the South African coach, the emphasis of the questions focusing on the last 30 minutes more than the entirety of the match is somewhat perplexing as he points out that winning is the sole function of knockout rugby, which is what Leinster achieved, albeit with a record 82,300 hearts in 82,300 mouths.

How Leinster scrambled to hold off a resurgent Northampton and earn a meeting later this month with Toulouse in the Champions Cup final has the room a little vexed. A near-perfect first half followed by a last third that almost allowed the match to trickle through Leinster’s fingers might have been a cause for concern.

“No, you just have to win it and again that comes down to Saints. The bottom line is you must get over the line. You must do everything in your power to win. I mean, nobody buried them. Has any team buried them?” aks Nienaber. “My thought during the whole game was listen, ‘we need to win this game’. That’s the thing about semis and that’s what makes semi-finals such a difficult game. Just ‘we need to get a win’ and I never thought it would be easy. Even at 50 minutes, I didn’t think it was easy.

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“I don’t know how much you guys followed them in the Premiership or in Europe, they were 28-something down against Exeter, a quality rugby team, and they ended up winning that game in the last minute.

“So, it’s not something that they haven’t done. So yes, even though we were 20-3 up, I think up to 55 or 58 minutes, yes we were playing well at that stage and were controlling the game but one lineout loss, two quick rucks and a good attacking kick in behind and you’re scrambling, and you don’t control that situation and they score. But that’s the team they are.”

Had Leinster lost the match, thoughts of La Rochelle in the last two European finals would have been difficult to shake off. The French side came back in both deciders from large deficits, last season from 17-0 down.

But as Nienaber argues, Leinster did not fall into a role of containment in the second half as Northampton and England fullback George Furbank suggested when he said they closed shop towards the end. More than anything, he argues that in a knockout game the team that is chasing the match has a dramatic mindset shift as the clock counts down, and risks that would have been unacceptable in the opening phases are willingly undertaken. Necessity takes over and momentum can shift on as little as a poorly executed lineout or pass.

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“I always think when you play in a semi-final and your opposition is of that calibre they are always going to come back,” says Nienaber. “Things that would have been risky at the start of the game aren’t quite the risk anymore because you are now at such a stage you are willing to risk more and more and more.

“Sometimes that risk doesn’t pay off and the game just runs away. You are sometimes between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t take those risks now you are not going to get back into the game and if those things stick, then you get yourself back into the game. It is handling that. Handling the reality of that, knowing that teams will take a little bit more risk especially when you lead.”

For now, Leinster will take the win and think about Ospreys next weekend. There was muted celebration after the match, just the players among themselves in their environment. There was no going out, no partying. Leo Cullen also hinted at the post-match press conference that they would be fielding stronger sides in the United Rugby Championship (URC) and have a match-hardened side meeting the French.

To do that, the team needs to improve in certain areas. In a broad sweep that is both realistic of where Leinster are although not specific, Nienaber says they are not yet the finished product, that the team is still a work in progress needing strengthening and reinforcement.

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“In my mind, honestly, I don’t know where we are statistically,” he says. “There is definitely some stuff that we can improve on in our kicking game. There is a lot of stuff we can improve on in our defence. There is a lot of stuff that we can improve on in our set-piece. I think we’re not the finished product at all.

“As a coaching group, we know that and as a playing group, we know that. We’ve got seven weeks until the end of the season and we’ve got seven weeks to make sure we get better at those things, but we’re not the finished product at all.”

The tone of the Northampton players after the match suggested that too. It spoke of a Leinster side they could have beaten had they got going earlier. But Leinster won. Nobody knows better than the twice World Cup winner how to do that.