FRUSTRATION WAS THE overriding emotion for Leinster coach Leo Cullen after he watched his men have victory stolen from them by Edinburgh at Myreside.
The eastern province dominated possession and territory on their latest visit to the Scottish capital. However, having gifted Edinburgh two first half tries before they scored a third more than two minutes into injury time before the break, Leinster then conceded two more in the second half when they failed to deal with chips over their defensive line, the second of them turned out to be a match-winner from Mark Bennett.
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“We had plenty of chances during the course of the game,” said Cullen.
“We scored some good tries, but we gifted them some easy opportunities, a charge-down and then having the ball stripped out which led to two tries and kept Edinburgh in the game. They were always there, we couldn’t quite shake them off, so it’s disappointing the way it ended.”
Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
While Leinster are harder hit than most by international demands during the Six Nations Championship, Cullen noted that they had done well during the corresponding period last year, so was making no excuses.
“We understand it’s a tough challenge coming over here when we’re missing a lot of players but there’s so many things we can get better at and sometimes you’ve got to go through that,” said the former international lock.
It’s difficult coming off a break, you’re never too sure what level of cohesion you have going into games. It’s a huge block of games for us and this block last year we won four games, so we need to make sure we don’t slip up again.
“Huge focus and attention now goes onto next week’s game against Scarlets who are top of our Conference. We’ll see how they go against Treviso (today) which will be a tricky task for them as well, then we play Kings, then Scarlets again, so meeting them twice in three weeks those are huge games.
“We’re very frustrated with how we went tonight. There are a lot of aspects of performance that could have been better. We’ve got a lot of young boys coming into the team and sometimes they have to go through that process. It’s frustrating but they’ll be better for it in the end.”
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'We need to make sure we don’t slip up again': Cullen demands Leinster response against Scarlets
FRUSTRATION WAS THE overriding emotion for Leinster coach Leo Cullen after he watched his men have victory stolen from them by Edinburgh at Myreside.
The eastern province dominated possession and territory on their latest visit to the Scottish capital. However, having gifted Edinburgh two first half tries before they scored a third more than two minutes into injury time before the break, Leinster then conceded two more in the second half when they failed to deal with chips over their defensive line, the second of them turned out to be a match-winner from Mark Bennett.
“We had plenty of chances during the course of the game,” said Cullen.
“We scored some good tries, but we gifted them some easy opportunities, a charge-down and then having the ball stripped out which led to two tries and kept Edinburgh in the game. They were always there, we couldn’t quite shake them off, so it’s disappointing the way it ended.”
While Leinster are harder hit than most by international demands during the Six Nations Championship, Cullen noted that they had done well during the corresponding period last year, so was making no excuses.
“We understand it’s a tough challenge coming over here when we’re missing a lot of players but there’s so many things we can get better at and sometimes you’ve got to go through that,” said the former international lock.
“Huge focus and attention now goes onto next week’s game against Scarlets who are top of our Conference. We’ll see how they go against Treviso (today) which will be a tricky task for them as well, then we play Kings, then Scarlets again, so meeting them twice in three weeks those are huge games.
“We’re very frustrated with how we went tonight. There are a lot of aspects of performance that could have been better. We’ve got a lot of young boys coming into the team and sometimes they have to go through that process. It’s frustrating but they’ll be better for it in the end.”
Jono Gibbes: ‘The scoreboard looks good but there was a hell of a lot of effort that went into getting that’
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Leinster pro14 Scarlets