Leo Cullen says he expects Jacques Nienaber to remain at Leinster next season, adding that his senior coach is “fully committed” to the province.
On Monday, Nienaber, who is under contract until 2027, suggested his Leinster future was uncertain while claiming he isn’t valued in Ireland during an explosive press conference, where he hit out at criticism of his style of play.
But the prospect of him leaving Leinster with a year left on his contract doesn’t appear to be on the cards, according to the province’s head coach.
“I’m very hopeful anyway, yeah,” Cullen said, when asked if Nienaber will be part of the Leinster coaching ticket next season.
“Listen, Jacques is brilliant. I have to say I’ve really enjoyed working with Jacques and I think we’ve a great group of coaches here.
“I think we’ve a great group of staff as well, so there’s so many great people in the building here and it’s a very enjoyable place to work and I wouldn’t even call it work, to be honest.
“It’s a very enjoyable place to turn up and coach and prepare a great group of players.
“I think Jacques is brilliant, and we’re very lucky to have him in terms of the experience that he has, top end of the game.
“It speaks for itself as a double World Cup winner and all the different things that I would research in terms of bringing Jacques here in the first place.
“Everything checks out, he’s a brilliant person, brilliant individual to work with and yes, that is very much the plan, for sure [for him to stay].”
While it was Nienaber (above) himself who raised the doubts around his future at the province, Cullen attempted to clarify the situation as he spoke to the media this afternoon.
“I think what he [Nienaber] was referring to is that there are no guarantees in sport, is there?
“What I think he was trying to get across was that when there is a lot of flak on the team from media sometimes a club will make changes.
“In his own mind I think he is fully committed to Leinster so please don’t get confused by that.”
Cullen was speaking after naming his team for Saturday’s BKT United Rugby Championship semi-final against Stormers at Aviva Stadium.
Jamison Gibson-Park, Josh van der Flier and Rónan Kelleher come into the side from last week’s 59-10 win against the Lions at Aviva Stadium, but Dan Sheehan, Robbie Henshaw and Tadhg Furlong are among those who miss out with injury.
“This is our sixth knockout game this weekend and it does take a toll.
“We have picked up a few niggles and knocks but the flip side is some guys who missed last week are back now with a bit of freshness.
“The Stormers are a serious outfit and we have to be crystal clear on what’s required this weekend,” the Leinster coach added.
While the Lions were poor opposition last week in the quarter-final, Leinster made light work of them with an impressive performance as they avoided any hangover from their Champions Cup final defeat to Bordeaux-Begles the previous week.
But Cullen says they need to remain sharp this weekend, as they welcome a Stormers side who will fancy their chances of causing an upset.
“We have done it before [in 2022] where we lost a final and we beat Glasgow pretty comprehensively in the RDS and then lost to the Bulls in the semi-final the week after, so yeah, that’s definitely been on my mind, listening up to James [Ryan] talking about it the start of the week,” he said.
“Stormers are coming to town and similar to Bulls a few years ago when they came to town and they came away with a big win, we just were stuck in that game and we got ourselves into trouble and we just couldn’t get ourselves out of it, so making sure that we don’t do that again this year, because we need to be able to learn from some of those past experiences.
“Stormers are a quality team, you can just see some of the signings that they’ve made from this season into next season, like with the likes of [Siya] Kolisi and [Cheslin] Kolbe going back there, Wilco Louw from the Bulls, like they’re proper world-class players that they’re signing.
“They’re a proper club, steeped in tradition, and we need to make sure we’re very clear as to what the challenge is going to be in this game.
“Obviously we’ve watched them have a big win again at the weekend against Cardiff and we just need to be really sharp in everything that we do this week.”
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