WINNING WAS ALL that really mattered for Leinster tonight and while the province have put on better shows for their home supporters, they did enough to claim a bonus-point win against Connacht which leaves them top of the URC table overnight.
After the disappointment of last weekend’s Champions Cup final defeat to Toulouse, a much-changed Leinster side ran in five tries against Connacht at the RDS to give themselves a chance of finishing in the top two ahead of tomorrow’s final round of fixtures.
The 33-7 win wasn’t the most complete Leinster performance but a dominant first-half put them in full control of a game in which they were rarely troubled.
Regardless of what happens tomorrow, Leinster know they will have a home game in the quarter-finals and Cullen was pleased to see his team just get the job done after a challenging week.
“The lads were good I thought,” Cullen said.
“Like, a very short week, we only really had one proper training session so cohesion was always going to be a bit of a challenge but overall started the game with good intent. It’s a big thing, you see some of the guys that are moving on at the end of the season for lots of different reasons, and it means a hell of a lot to them.
So a difficult week and the lads should be proud of themselves, how they’ve applied themselves and it’s nice that they got a positive result as well.
“The performance was far from perfect, you go to 21-0 but it felt like it was 21-0 for a long, long time there. We failed to push on and failed to deliver on some of the basics that you need to do to pull away from any team really at this level.
“But overall, we talked about there being a mix of some guys who have been a bit unlucky with selection, some young guys coming into the team as well and some guys that were involved in the matchday 23 in the Champions Cup final as well, so it’s trying to marry those three groups and overall we’re pleased to get a win.
“It’s five points and we’ll see where we sit at this time tomorrow night.”
Connacht’s season is now over, with the province missing out on a place in the playoffs after a disappointing run of results.
“It was disappointing and frustrating as well because I felt we would have had more opportunities if we’d done a couple of things better and the importance of winning your contacts in attack and defence, against a very good Leinster team, in a game where it’s super important we get off to a good start so that we can start to build a score,” said head coach Pete Wilkins.
“We needed to get a win, preferably a bonus-point win. In that first half, Leinster dominated the contact area, from attack and defence
“As a result of we were chasing shadows for long periods. We dug ourselves in a hole, I thought that improved after half-time, after something of a rev up but that’s too late, it’s too late in most games if you are 21-0 down but particularly against a team of this calibre.”
