Stormers boss John Dobson admitted he did exactly the same thing by going after the supporters and revealed that he immediately regretted it.
The Cape Town outfit are in Dublin ahead of their United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Irish giants, but the build-up has been dominated by the Leinster hierarchy’s explosive press conference.
Both Cullen and senior coach Jacques Nienaber have had their say, with the former first to hit the headlines with his post-match comments following the victory over the Lions in the last-eight.
Cullen’s frustration
“I haven’t seen it. What backlash?” Cullen asked in a tense exchange last Saturday.
“Specifically. Any Leinster fans specifically? Nobody’s come to my face yet with this.
“I’m not on social media so you’ll have to explain this one to me. I’m not a fan of social media because I think it’s very negative and toxic, that would be my experience.
“So, I wouldn’t try to expose myself to that too much. Is that good advice?
“Any mainstream piece rather than just social? Any mainstream pieces or just social media pieces you’re referring to?”
That reference to social media comments irked some fans, who use the platform to voice their opinion without being ‘trolls’.
Speaking to Off The Ball, Dobson felt that he fell into the same trap of dismissing the views of genuine supporters just because they came from an online platform.
“I did the same thing this year. We were getting destroyed on social media and I did the wrong thing, I got up there and said: ‘Jeepers, these keyboard warriors’, the old cliché, and it was absolutely the wrong thing to do,” he said.
“There’s blind protectionism and then there’s an underappreciation of those people who try to engage with the team.
“I think to attack them, what I did was certainly wrong.”
Pressure on Cullen
Cullen was also asked about the increasing pressure but the Leinster boss once again hit back, insisting that he is not feeling the strain in a negative way.
“The amount of messages of support that I personally and the team have had, people want to back us. Why don’t you report about that? All the positive messages from them rather than all the negative ones. Why does it always have to be negative pressure?” he said.
“I see the positive pressure because I see so many people supporting the team and me personally that were in Bilbao for the weekend.”
However, for Dobson, he sees it slightly differently.
“It’s a massive fear of losing and that sometimes makes you not as good a coach because you think, ‘what if?’” the Stormers boss said.
“You sit there, and I’m sure they would have had the same experience in Bordeaux, and you think, ‘geez, we can’t lose this’, and it starts to become quite negative.
“We’re just desperate to be in that final next week and it doesn’t feel like positive pressure.”
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