Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Leinster bring in a new coach, changes to the style of play follow. No, we’re not talking about Jacques Nienaber and the blitz. Been there, done that.
Under new coach Tyler Bleyendaal, the province’s work with ball in hand has come in for criticism. Yet post Six Nations, with the Ireland contingent back after a middling international campaign, Leinster’s attack has clicked to its most impressive level since the former Munster outhalf moved into his UCD office.
Across their two Champions Cup knock-outs this year, Leinster rocked up 114 unanswered points. That’s close to 40 more than the 76 they scored against Leicester and La Rochelle last year.
Leinster vs Northampton - the comeback final revisited
It’s not just the number on the scoreboard. Leinster look more fluid, more instinctive. What, if anything, has changed tactically? Do the underlying numbers back up the un-analytic vibes check?
The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times
Forewarned is forearmed as Leinster look to take down Northampton in search for fifth star
Leinster may be semi-final specialists, but getting any further is often a coin toss
Tommy Freeman overcomes adversity to become a standout Northampton Saints player
‘The opposition!’ screams the cynic at the back in response to the first question. Yes, Harlequins and Glasgow don’t match up in quality terms to Leicester and La Rochelle. Yet if the answer were so simple, this article would not have been written.
Compare how Leinster and Northampton have scored their tries this season. According to Opta, this season the Irish province uses the set-piece as the cornerstone of 68 per cent of their scores. Turnover ball accounts for five per cent, kick return six per cent.
Northampton, by contrast, are much more balanced. Forty-seven per cent of their scores come from set-piece, 20 per cent from turnover and 16 per cent from returning kicks.
Leinster are a classic Irish team. Look at the national squad during the Six Nations; 88 per cent of their tries came from lineout or scrum. In this country, we don’t have a culture of lethal transition attack. Nothing has changed, then. Leinster are still one dimensional.
Over the course of the season, yes. In their two most recent European games, though, look again.
Against ‘Quins, Leinster crossed for 10 scores. Four came from set-piece, three from turnover and three from kick return. Of the eight tries recorded against Glasgow, six were from the dead ball and two came off turnover. You don’t need to take the calculator out to see that these figures present a more balanced return compared to the season as a whole.
Ah, but this is merely a small sample against teams which lack top-end quality. Yes, but such caveats still don’t render Leinster’s more balanced attack uninteresting.
In a way, it makes perfect sense that Leinster should be better at running back turnovers. They employ the world’s most aggressive defensive system, underpinned by line speed and breakdown shenanigans. If they don’t give away penalties, they’ll win plenty of turnovers. Cue golden opportunities against defences which, just nanoseconds earlier, were set up to attack.
“It’s providing us with opportunities to attack, off defensive sets, which is great,” said Bleyendaal recently. Curse these understated Kiwis.
Leinster haven’t been historically poor in their transition attack. Case in point: during the quarter-final win over La Rochelle last year, when Andrew Goodman ran the show, Leinster scored a superb try off kick return. James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park did the honours via a beautiful offload sequence.
A year on, the addition of a third Kiwi has helped. Jordie Barrett’s chip and chase as Leinster ran back a kick against Harlequins led to one particular score.
Other non-Kiwis have also become more prominent, better able to identify space on transition. Sam Prendergast is desperate to immediately get his hands on the ball when it’s won back. After Tommy O’Brien’s turnover in Glasgow’s 22, Prendergast stuck his head up and kicked wide to the waiting Rónan Kelleher. A penalty try followed.
The pièce de résistance of Leinster’s recent transition attack involved a host of non-Kiwis doing the instinctive heavy lifting. Jamie Osborne scored against ‘Quins just shy of the half-hour mark in Croke Park. The play started from a kick landing inside Leinster’s 22. Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose, Osborne and Josh van der Flier all played a part, finding gaps, keeping the ball alive. It took Leinster just two rucks to get from one end of Jones’ Road to the other.
For what it’s worth, Leinster haven’t neglected attacking off more structured ball. Their phase play off set-piece still looks good.
Bleyendaal arrived in Dublin with a reputation as an innovative coach who asked unorthodox things of his pods. Nominally, Leinster play a similar 1-3-3-1 system to what he implemented with the Hurricanes. Josh van der Flier, Kelleher and Max Deegan have all had success of late as the ‘1’ forward holding a wide position.
The pods of three in the middle, though, are up to all sorts. “How can the two pods of three be more connected and create more variation?” said Jayson Ross, Bleyendaal‘s analyst at the Hurricanes when speaking to this paper last year.
With Leinster, that variation has come thick and fast. Backs join the forward pods. Barrett links with Joe McCarthy, RG Snyman with Lowe. Sometimes the three-man group turns into two, or even a solo expedition.
Some passes go with the grain, others come back inside. Offloads are a dime a dozen – 45 so far in 2025 knock-out rugby compared to 11 at the same stage last year.
The attack posts better, more rounded stats as the season progresses. Leinster stretch the bounds of their structure and avoid predictability. They look as comfortable in chaos since Stuart Lancaster coined that very phrase.
The impressive return needs to hold up across the next two European fixtures. Leinster’s attack deserted them against Toulouse last year. Is it better set up to avoid such a fate? We can make an educated guess.
For now, guesswork is all we have.
