PRE-SEASON HAS looked a little different for Leo Cullen and Leinster this year. 

With Andy Farrell using Ireland’s summer Tests to lean on younger players and experiment with his options, the Leinster head coach found himself working with a more experienced group than usual.

The likes of Johnny Sexton, Cian Healy and Rhys Ruddock, veterans who are so often either tied up with international duty or enjoying some well-earned time off in the summer months, were instead back at Leinster HQ getting an early start on preparations for the new season – their presence in turn further motivating the rest of Cullen’s summer squad. 

Others are slowly being reintegrated as the new season creeps up on the horizon. Those who were part of the Ireland squad have recently reported back, while the Lions contingent probably won’t play until rounds four and five of the URC, with Rónan Kelleher – who travelled to South Africa but didn’t play – likely to come back into the mix a little sooner.

And ahead of the first and only pre-season game in Leinster’s diary, Cullen feels the group are in a good place as they look to attack a new campaign with renewed vigour, the pain of last season’s Champions Cup semi-final exit to La Rochelle still very much serving as a driving force.

“I do get the sense the group is highly motivated now,” Cullen said, logging in for his first press conference of the new season.

But you’ve got to see it (on the pitch). The talk is one thing and training is one thing, but in the games is where it counts and you need to be able to make that step up and make sure you’re fighting for your team and all the rest, and delivering on the things we work on on a day to day basis here, that cohesion as a team.

“There’s plenty of motivation here. There was a frustrating feeling at the end of last season, even though there was lots of good stuff during the course of that season as well.

“We’re focused on working hard in pre-season, growing that game understanding and cohesion with different combinations that we have in the squad.

“During the season there’s always a bit of chopping and changing but there’s a good mix of ages, a lot of experienced guys who have done it on the biggest stage over the course of a number of years and there’s younger guys as well that gained a hell of a lot of experience over the course of the season, whether that’s making their Irish debut or playing for Leinster in big games for the first time.

“So it’s another layer for them and you want all these guys to kick on and achieve their full potential, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

And while Ireland is slowly beginning to open up and hopefully step out of the shadow of Covid-19, another long summer of restrictions impacted Leinster’s usual efforts to try tap into different sources of knowledge.

“There are lots of people I would reach out to (over the summer), just to chew the fat about some of the problems that we may be facing and just how teams are managing certain things,” Cullen explained.

“Some of the law tweaks will be interesting how teams adapt best to that. Just trying to get a gauge on that with the Top14 back on this week and what does that all look like. We don’t have all the answers yet here so we’re still out there searching.

There’s a good share (of information). Even off the back of that lockdown the fact that you’re able to communicate better in this type of format: sharing screens, sharing ideas and sharing different clips of certain things that you’ve faced – that’s been a huge addition really in terms of that learning and growth, all that good stuff that coaches can do now. 

“So the flip side of that is everyone is able to see what other environments do so that maybe there’s a lot of sharing what people know. There’s a bit of second guessing which goes on as well so there’s been a lot of good stuff over the pre-season, but one of the things I missed is last year we would have had a lot of people come in from other sports and you’d get the opportunity to do that, that’s something that we missed.”

And even with Leinster yet to kick a ball in the 2021/22 season, Cullen already has 12 names on the ‘unavailable for selection’ list ahead of Friday’s friendly against Harlequins at the Aviva Stadium.

Some of those are only expected to be short-term absentees, while others – such as Dave Kearney – are expected to be sidelined for a couple of months. It’s not an ideal way to approach a new campaign, but after a long, slightly different summer, Cullen is just happy to be sending a team back out onto a pitch again.

“I was talking to somebody from Toulouse and they said they had one pre-season game and a camp the week before and that was literally their pre-season, so we’ve had quite a long block of pre-season by comparison, which has given us a bit of time to work on things. 

“But we need to see it now in real-life action against proper opposition that are gunning for us. We saw a bit of the Quins game against Cardiff at the weekend so they have a slight edge on us in many ways, but our boys are all raring to go.” 

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