Leinster coach Leo Cullen said that he and his team are focused on delivering for the fans after Leinster cruised to a 12-try win over Italian side Zebre in Aviva stadium. It comes after the disappointment of losing to Northampton last week in the Champions Cup with Leinster now into the quarter-final stages of the United Rugby Championship.
“Guys have turned the page. Monday was a painful experience, players and staff are working hard to find solutions to where we got exposed at the weekend,” said Cullen.
“We need to continue that mindset, so everyone is motivated to move forward. A bit of positivity with the news about the 12 Lions at the end of the week, but everyone’s also talked about making sure we deliver when we can for the group, for the players we have this season, for the fans, family, supporters.”
What pleased Cullen most was not the 76-5 scoreline, the biggest margin in the history of the URC, but that the Leinster team again played a brand of rugby that the fans were able to enjoy.
“Just the fact that we’re playing rugby again, when you have a defeat like that you have to just get back playing again,” said Cullen. “We have a tournament to go after.
“It’s tricky juggling two tournaments, but when one ends, you’re very thankful for having the other one.
“The score isn’t relevant; it’s just the fans watching the team score tries and a product they can identify with.”
Cullen reported no new injuries as Leinster prepare for their final game of the regular season against Glasgow next week before they go into the knockout phase. Their quarter-finals opponents will not be known until all the games are complete, but he says Leinster will have to try and flip the pressure that now falls on them to win a trophy this year.
“There’s a lot of talk about pressure, but I think it’s important that we flip that on its head a little bit because we have to apply pressure on the teams that we’re playing against,” said Cullen.
“There’s a lot of threats in our team and we need to make sure we’re using those effectively, so it’s just how we apply pressure on opposition from now on. We understand that opposition will come with plans to try and unsettle the team. Credit to Northampton, they did a good job.
“You look back on some of the stats of the game, 60 per cent possession, entries into the opposition 22 versus theirs ... you have to ask how did we lose the game. But they came up with some good plans, we didn’t do a good enough job unfortunately on the day. “
