Are Leinster Fans Spoilt?

Last season, amidst drawing away to Treviso, losing an unbeaten home record to the mighty Newport Gwent Dragons, losing away in Newport and getting spanked home and away by Munster, Leinster fans were labelled as being “spoilt” by several members of the national media when calling for the end of the Matt O’Connor era. It was unreasonable to expect a maintenance of Joe Schmidt level of unprecedented success for sure, but what angered Leinster fans was how quickly basic standards dropped. Players were falling off tackles, passes were dropping and a crabbing lateral attack that went nowhere was punctuated by inane crossfield kicks inevitably ending in a turnover coming from an irreplaceable outhalf. Leinster went into the second last game of last season unsure whether they would be in the top tier of European Competition the following year, this despite possessing a squad which contained the bulk of the Irish World Cup squad and a crop of youngsters who had won back to back British and Irish Cups.

Unhappiness at this was, in my opinion, completely justified and the writers calling those fans spoiled for being fed up with a continual decline in performance during the 18 months of the Matt O’Connor era were lazily pointing at Leinster still grinding out results in Europe. Leinster were lucky to beat Wasps at home, lucky to draw with them away, lucky to beat Harlequins at home and had the pleasure of an utterly hapless Castres team being in their pool. Despite playing well for the first half in the quarter final against Bath, Leinster scarcely deserved to squeak through to the semi final where they, in fairness, put in a very good shift and were unlucky not to beat an out of sorts Toulon who would go on to win the competition for a third time in succession.

 

What relevance do these comments have to this season you might ask? Quite a lot in my eyes. While the “spoiled” tag might  have been very unjustified last season, it is quickly becoming something which might well be appropriate if you cast an eye over some of the comments on Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the confirmation of Leinster’s exit from Europe following defeat to Toulon in Stade Mayol on Sunday. I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen “fans” calling for Leo Cullen to be sacked. He has coached eight Guinness Pro12 games, of which Leinster have won six, conceding 20 points fewer than their nearest rivals in defensive stats, gaining two four-try bonus points and one losing bonus point. This despite playing for the first five games shorn of between 15 and 20 first team players at the World Cup. He then had the difficult task of reintroducing those international players into the team for a Champions Cup campaign against 3 of the best 5 or 6 teams in Europe this season (with Saracens, Racing and Clermont for company).

Was the result at home against Wasps disappointing? Undoubtedly. It was as bad as I’ve seen Leinster play in the RDS. It might be worth remembering that the Wasps team we struggled to beat twice last season have been strengthened by the arrivals of George Smith, Frank Halai and Charles Piutau, and were mighty good on the day. Right to be aggrieved as fans? Sure. Calling for your coach, who was the most successful captain the province has ever and probably will ever have, to be sacked? That’s just awful.

 

Fast forward a week to the Bath game, where Leinster lost 19-16, and but for a faulty lineout (which has been a problem for at least a season and a half now) could have won. They played well, but their poor scrum cost them dearly, and ultimately that was the end of their European campaign. Again there were calls for Leo to be sacked or at least that this meant he was now “under pressure”. Rubbish. This is a team that, at peak performance and full of confidence, could be challenging for European silverware, but did we really expect that to happen this season with a rookie head coach with one year of experience as a forwards coach in a poor camp? I sure didn’t.

 

Leinster regrouped from that point and eeked out an ugly 8-3 win in their first interpro of the year against Ulster. The following weekend that got a break as the Glasgow game was called off. That same week, Toulon announced the signing for the following year of Francois Trinh Duc to go along with Quade Cooper, Frederic Michalak, Matt Giteau and James O’Connor. They introduced Ma’a Nonu while stomping Agen. No one expected Leinster to win in Mayol. There may have been blind faith that they could pull off a miracle, but certainly it was not expected.

 

Right from the beginning they looked to play from deep, broke out of their own 22 several times, and lead the game 6-0. The start was bright. Healy’s sinbinning resulted in no points for Toulon. Devin Toner’s resulted in 6. With 60 minutes on the clock Leinster were still within a try of the team which has a major trophy:player ratio far better than anything that has been seen in professional rugby history. 24-9 it finished, with another try at the death making the scoreboard look a little uglier, but Leinster played manfully. Their star outhalf didn’t perform on the day, the scrum was not as strong as it needed to be and again we lost a crucial lineout at a bad time. Again the comments raged, “Leo is out of his depth”, “Pressure is on”, “Leo needs to go”, all rubbish. Worse still was some tosh that Joe Schmidt and David Nucifora have ruined provincial rugby. Utter nonsense.

 

Listen, it is quite clear that Leo was not first choice for the job. If he was, the coaching search would not have gone on so long. Owing to the way the provinces are set up, with less control over the team than the clubs in England and France, and a lot less money, provincial jobs are not attractive to the Robbie Deans or Jake White type coaches who already have a high profile. Barring a strong desire to return to Ireland for personal reasons, even Conor O’Shea or Mark McCall would be nuts to leave Harlequins or Saracens to come home. Michael Cheika, Joe Schmidt and Declan Kidney were not high profile guys before they brought Leinster and Munster success. Matt O’Connor wasn’t either, and unfortunately he didn’t work out. Leo might not work out either, but he deserves a chance at least, and calling for his head after less than half a season, when there have been at least some positive signs is terrible. It smacks of arrogance, of being spoilt by the success of former years, and of short termism. What coach in their right mind would accept a an already somewhat unattractive job at a province where its fans are calling for a club legend to be sacked after 11 games? I think Leo might need some more experience in around him, but he has shown a willingness to bring some youth through and has got us playing a bit more expansively. Obviously it isn’t all good but there are some bright points.

As a fan your job is to support the team and urge them on when things are tough, and hopefully they can give you things to celebrate. This Leinster team has won 3 Heineken Cups, an Amlin Challenge Cup and three Pro12s since 2008. The fan base has had a mountain of good days. An ultimately meaningless game against a team of superstars in a big ground beckons. Not showing up and packing Lansdowne Road out to see the game, with the star power on show, would give a horrible impression of the fan base as glory hunters, unwilling to deal with the bad times. Losing to those three teams, particularly in the manner of the last two, is no great shame. Wouldn’t it be great if Leinster fans could get behind Leo and the team and maybe we can give Toulon the same medicine they’ve given us the past three years and go a long way to knocking them out of the competition on Saturday. Come to the Aviva and Come On You Boys in Blue.