Leinster boss Leo Cullen has pushed back against the notion that his side should be labelled as failures if they fall short in Saturday’s URC final against the Bulls at Croke Park.
Victory would end a four-year wait for silverware for the province, who include former Wales forwards coach Robin McBryde as one of Cullen’s assistants.
Leinster have endured a string of near misses — including three Champions Cup finals and three URC semi-final exits, despite consistently topping the league standings.
Despite this, Cullen believes any verdict branding Leinster as failures would be unfair, particularly given the narrow margins involved at the top level.
“They’re all individual games. Every play-off game is a final as such. We have played in lots, whether they come in a quarter-final, semi-final or final,” he said.
“The group is learning all the time, young players come through, you are adding layers of experience.
“I think the way some of the questions are leading me, it’s like, ‘Whoever loses is a failure’. In this game there are two good teams going at it. If you lose in a final, are you classified as a failure?”
Cullen highlighted that both sides could deliver their best performance of the season, yet one must still finish second-best — a scenario that doesn’t necessarily warrant harsh judgment.
“You can play your best game in the final. So both of these teams could play their best games of the season but unfortunately one of the teams has to lose.
“So one of the teams, who has just played their best game, they are classified as losers because they have lost but are they failures?
“You are guaranteed nothing. So you have to prepare the best you can with the time you have to put in your best performance.
“I hope the group goes out and does itself justice. It’s on the day.”
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Many of Cullen’s players have yet to lift a trophy for Leinster, with the last two PRO14 titles coming behind closed doors during the pandemic. However, the head coach is keen to keep the focus firmly on the process, not the prize.
“Unfortunately, the reality is once you get closer to something, that’s what people tend to look at and they can quite often trip themselves up.
“So making sure we focus on playing well, because that’s the bit we can control . . . the outcome and some of the other variables, we can’t control. Bulls will test us in lots of different ways.”
It’s a final of firsts – with Croke Park, the home of GAA in Ireland hosting its first-ever rugby final – plus it's the first time a URC final has been played outside South Africa.
Leinster have not lost a game at Croke Park to date with four wins from four at the iconic sports venue which has only ever hosted a South African international team once before, when the Springboks lost 15-10 to Ireland in November 2009.
The stage is set as Ireland’s most decorated province face South Africa’s most successful club side.
Leinster have won the league a record eight times, last lifting the trophy in 2018.
The Bulls have beaten Leinster twice in the URC semi-finals in 2022 and 2024 but have lost two of their last finals in 2022 to the Stormers and last year to Glasgow Warriors.
The clash at Croke Park is also a rematch of last season’s semi-final, which Leinster lost in Pretoria.
Cullen acknowledged that history — and the surrounding circumstances — could inject extra drive into his players.
“Bulls, we played in the semi-final last year and lost, had to travel down to Pretoria and try to deal with some of those challenges.
“They look like they’ve got here OK, so, from our point of view, does it give us a slight advantage, an extra day? Then again, they’ve had that time together, a chance to build a bit of a siege mentality.
“Lads have trained well this week, put a good plan together, but now we’ve got to deliver it.
“We trained out there in very difficult conditions. If conditions are like that at the weekend, we need to make sure we are able to adapt.”
Leinster will be bolstered by the returns of Garry Ringrose and Josh van der Flier, both of whom have been passed fit to start. However, Tadhg Furlong and Hugo Keenan are unavailable for the final showdown.
Ross Byrne, set to join Gloucester after the season, will feature from the bench in his final appearance for the province.
But there is disappointment for veteran Cian Healy, who has been left out of the matchday squad for what would have been his last game before retirement.
“Cian, you think what he has done and achieved with the club, the contribution he made to Leinster rugby, that was probably the most difficult,” Cullen said.
