Leinster coach Leo Cullen said that he was confident that he could lead his team to a Champions Cup, and that he was the person to lead the organisation forward, following Saturday’s 34-37 defeat to Northampton in the semi-final of the Champions Cup.
Leinster made it to the last three finals of the competition, but lost out in all three games to La Rochelle (twice) and Toulouse.
“Yeah, I think I am. Yeah. I believe that I am, yes,” said Cullen.
“I think we’ve worked hard to try and improve the group year-on-year and I think the group is very strong right now. As I said, that’s not something that’s just created last week, it’s year-on-year - and I think we’ve a stronger group now.
“We’ve lost three finals over the last three years, yeah, but I believe we’ve a stronger group now than we’ve had and that’s the way I will continue to approach the day-to-day in terms of preparing the short term, medium term, long term. So, yes. And I’m very committed to that as well.”
Cullen summed up the Leinster dressing room as a “sombre place” and the feelings of the Leinster players in the Aviva Stadium as “pretty horrific.”
Hot favourites to make their passage safely through to the final in Cardiff later this month, Leinster’s inaccuracy and poor showing in the first half of the match led to their demise.
“In the dressing room it’s a pretty sombre place as you can imagine,” said Cullen. “You set off at the start of the season and you know the final is in Cardiff. Everything is building towards that. Everyone is imagining themselves, every team, I’m sure, is imagining themselves there in the final.
“There is so, so much work that goes into a team getting to a semi-final…when you lose it is pretty horrific and that is the feeling we are experiencing at the moment, because I think it was one of those games. You’d love to have another crack at it straight away. But unfortunately, you don’t get that opportunity and that’s sport.”
Cullen pointed to Northampton’s scoring ability and the hattrick scored by their strike runner, right wing Tommy Freeman, in the first half. Even when Leinster threw everything at them in the dying stages, Northampton held strong.
“Northampton were excellent I thought. We sat here yesterday talking about how strong Northampton are, in terms of some of their attacking threats and what they are capable of doing,” said Cullen. “I think we saw that in lots of different parts of the game. I think we did plenty of good things. I think we were maybe inaccurate in stages in the first half.
“I thought Northampton were very good in terms of some of their counterattack and they hit us on the counter a couple of times with some suckerpunch tries. Tommy Freeman ... I thought he was excellent in terms of his speed, the finish. He scores his hat-trick in the first half. Quite often when you fall behind we get a little bit jittery, don’t we, and we’re not quite accurate enough in some of the things we do, and we compound errors.”
Cullen added that he had no regrets about keeping All Black Jordie Barrett on the bench until the second half of the match.
“Well, listen, I will look back on lots of different things, over the course of the next few weeks,” said Cullen. “And, yes, when you don’t win a game, particularly in a semi-final, everyone is going to second-guess everything.
“Listen, Jordie brought huge impact, and that is what we wanted from him. Similar with Jack Conan, as well, and a lot of other players that were on the bench. You look at us at the end of the game - we looked like a strong team, attacking the game. There’s probably bits before where we weren’t quite accurate enough. But I don’t have regrets about that plan, specifically.”
