The characteristics that define sporting dynasties are excellence, consistency, longevity and winning multiple trophies. To wrangle an entire business into a cohesive off-field and on-field collective that is obsessed with winning is like herding cats. To do it for one trophy-winning season is a great achievement. To repeat that feat year after year to create a sporting dynasty is truly extraordinary.
From the New York Yankees baseball team that won the World Series 16 times from 1936 to 1962, to the St George Dragons Rugby League team that won the Sydney Premiership unbroken from 1956 to 1966, to Manchester United’s two decades of dominance under Alex Ferguson and the much feted 1990s Chicago Bulls, driven by Michael Jordan and the quiet genius of their coach Phil Jackson, all of these winning dynasties benefited from the longevity of the clubs’ top-quality players and staff.
From exceptional chief executives who run the back of the house, to outstanding coaches who attract and keep exceptional players, all staff combine to create a consistent high performance that can last for generations of successive players’ careers.
Leinster continue to tick all these boxes. Even their harshest critics have to admit that the consistency of their performances across many seasons has been extraordinary.
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After a series of bitter defeats in Champions Cup finals and URC playoffs, added to the retirement of Johnny Sexton, one of rugby’s greatest ever on-field generals, the naysayers predicted that this season Leinster’s collective ability to unleash their inner dog at the highest level of European club rugby would dry up like an Australian outback paddock in the depths of El Niño.
The departure of Stuart Lancaster’s exceptional coaching knowledge to Racing 92 in Paris merely strengthened the argument.
Despite all of these real obstacles, Irish rugby’s quiet man, Leo Cullen, once again has his team competing at the highest of standards. While it must be said the side are still not firing on all cylinders and there remains considerable room for their on field-performance to improve, to have suffered only one defeat in the URC despite suppling so many players to Ireland’s World Cup campaign and then to have defeated La Rochelle, their most bitter rival, amounts to a phenomenal performance.
This consistently high performance is being achieved with the vast majority of their playing staff being born and bred in their home province. This is unmatched across the globe. Whenever I talk to leading Australian or New Zealand administrators, it is Leinster’s consistency and academy that dominates their questions.
Despite winning the URC four times in the last six years and making the final of the Champions Cup three out of the last five, a record that any other club on the planet would pay millions for, the envious are more than happy to try to cut Leinster’s tall poppy down.
At home in Ireland, where they should be feted and celebrated for their excellence, they are looked at by many as something close to failures. Classed as chokers because they have not been able to win a trophy for two years.
It is a fact that Leinster have lost a string of major end-of-season matches that has left their trophy cabinet bare. However, competing in two season-long competitions across 2022-23 and dropping only one game in both competitions while fielding all but two players who have been produced by their own academy, all coached by an esteemed former player and local product himself, is simply an unattainable pipe dream for every other club in the world.
Compare Leinster’s processes with that of the French and English clubs, who scour the globe for international-class players to boost their ranks, all the while depreciating their own academies. Then when faced with a poor season, they chop their leadership and change their structures.
While the Irish rugby public’s fascination with the Champions Cup is well documented, it is also completely out of touch with reality. On paper, none of the Irish provinces should be able to go toe to toe with French and English giants. The fact that the structures of the competition rules were changed in the French and English clubs favour tells us that our middleweight provinces are punching well above their weight.
As usual, Cullen has gone about his leadership in his quiet and unobtrusive way, shunning the media spotlight and deflecting praise on to his assistants and players. Like the team he leads, his exceptional coaching is highly underappreciated in his home country.
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While Joe Schmidt is a high value target for the Wallabies job, be sure that Cullen’s name is also being mentioned in national boardrooms across the globe.
Leinster are more than capable of ending the 2023-24 season with both the URC and Champions Cup once again back in the trophy cabinet. If they do, their consistency of performance and their outstanding leadership, both on and off the field, will be the foundation of that success.
