YESTERDAY THE LEINSTER squad gathered in UCD for what was surely a painful review of Saturday’s Champions Cup final defeat to Toulouse.
Jacques Nienaber was never going to give the media his full breakdown of where he felt the game was won and lost but thankfully, he tends be rather forthcoming when faced with a spread of dictaphones.
The Toulouse port-mortem was the first port of call when Nienaber took his seat in the Leinster media room yesterday, and the South African broke his dissection of the game down into three key takeways.
“You try and look at it as unemotional as possible, and there’s a lot of things but I think there’s probably three things that stand out,” Nienaber explained.
“The first one is did you win the game? No. That’s the biggest thing and the most important one.
“Then the second one I would say our discipline, but not necessarily discipline as in giving penalties away, I think we probably were a little bit more disciplined than they were in terms of penalty count but discipline in terms of keeping continuity with ball in hand. We gave too many turnovers away, so that’s what I mean by discipline.
“And then the third is continuity, our breakdown, and there credit should probably go to Toulouse and how they slowed our ball down, so we struggled to generate consistent quick ball, especially when we got into their 22 where we couldn’t generate quick ball and that gave them time to set.
“Those are the three glaring issues I would say, if you look at it from a completely unemotional point of view and just from a rugby point of view.”
For those outside the Leinster bubble, one of the biggest talking points has been the province’s failure to convert their chances in the Toulouse 22. Leinster’s accuracy let them down at crucial moments but even more glaring was their return from penalties.
The province were awarded 16 penalties at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Five were kicked at goal and all five yielded three points. On six occasions, Leinster kicked to the corner with no return. Four times they kicked to touch and won a penalty, while only once did a kick to the corner lead to a try.
“I saw people saying something about nine kickable penalties and I went through every single one,” Nienaber said.
“I think we talk about four penalties (that might have been kickable) and from those four one was on the 15m, one was probably 10 metres from the touchline and the other two were on the 5m or in the 5m, between the touchline and the 5m, which there, you back the captain and the kicker to have a chat and say ‘listen, how do you feel for this one?’ Then they must make a call.
“And in saying that, every kicker and we as coaches know what is their success rate between the two 15s, between the 15m and the 5m and their success rate between the 5m and the touchline. So they know it, we know it and it’s something you just plot, it’s on a beautiful graph.
“Look, you can force it. But if you know historically over the season in this zone of the field my success rate is currently 50%, you know and you tell the captain that’s it’s 50:50 and then you make a decision are you going for the posts or are you going back yourself in the corner with the maul.
“And on top of that I think with hindsight, I think nothing that I say now will be right because obviously it’s being played out and the decision to go to the corner didn’t result in an outcome that was positive in points, so it was the wrong decision because it’s outcome based.
“If we went for poles and we missed for poles, people will say, like two years ago when Leinster played La Rochelle [in the 2022 final] and they were too conservative, why didn’t they go to touch?
“If you lose it doesn’t matter what you say the day after because your decision making was wrong because the outcome wasn’t positive. I think if the outcome was positive the decision making would be right. It’s outcome based.”
Nienaber said the players won’t be mentally scarred by another final defeat and stressed that he didn’t see any major cause for concern in Leinster’s performance on the day.
“The thing is, we got numerous 22m entries and really good attack, but then like I said, the big learning thing is the continuity. The discipline in going for an offload and the guy knocks it on. Which sometimes happens.
“If I look at the errors that we made, it wasn’t a consistent thing. The offload to Jamo [Jamison Gibson-Park] on the inside, nine minutes in the game, I think if Lowey [James Lowe] and Jamo does that offload nine out of 10 times, he will catch it and it will be points under the poles, but this one wasn’t. Neither of them meant that it should be an error.
“For me looking at it, you have to distinguish between was it a system error, because that we must fix because it’s a system error. Was it a skill error? If the player doesn’t have that skill we must either get a player that has that skill or if we’ve seen that player execute that skill – like that inside pass for instance – we’ve seen it a million times, you guys have seen it more than I have so they do possess that skillset.
Was it a problem of attitude or effort, it wasn’t. If you look at the game, the mistakes that they made, it wasn’t a lack of attitude or effort, it was not something that I’m used to seeing from them.”
Leinster must now pick themselves up for a charge at the URC as they look to avoid a third straight season without a trophy. The province host Connacht at the RDS on Friday before heading into the knock-out rounds.
Leo Cullen’s men will be without the services of Hugo Keenan this weekend as he heads off on Sevens duty ahead of the Olympics, with Nienaber admitting he is unsure if the province will have the fullback available at any stage during the knock-outs.
The South African also said discussions are ongoing regarding Sam Prendergast’s potential loan move to Connacht.
“No. I think there are discussions. But like I said, my job is purely on the field. Leo and other guys are working on that.
“Again it is not my domain, probably the best answer is Leo. But if I can just say in my head I think the stakeholders will be Sam, obviously, it will be David [Humphreys] and the national body and the club. I don’t think it won’t be the club, they’ll also have a say.”
