{"id":477329,"date":"2026-06-05T08:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/477329\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T08:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:01:16","slug":"were-incredibly-lucky-to-have-him-hes-a-genius-leo-cullen-backs-jacques-nienaber-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/477329\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re incredibly lucky to have him. He\u2019s a genius\u2019: Leo Cullen backs Jacques Nienaber \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is becoming a thing: another Thursday afternoon, another Zoom call at Leinster<\/a> HQ and another Leo Cullen<\/a> state-of-the-province address.<\/p>\n

Seven days earlier and in the week following their latest Champions Cup<\/a> final defeat, Cullen said he remained the right man to guide Leinster, whereas this latest briefing focused largely on senior coach Jacques Nienaber<\/a> and the bombshell remarks the South African made to print journalists in the same building three days earlier.<\/p>\n

Nienaber, who has a year left on his contract, expressed hope that he would stay beyond the end of the season, but then claimed that was not valued in his role<\/a>, and that pressure from the public and media would ultimately cost him his job.<\/p>\n

Cullen, however, appears confident the 53-year-old will remain in place and, while addressing the issue, defended the coaching structure responsible for delivering Leinster\u2019s game plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been evolution year on year,\u201d the head coach said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to deliver the plan, who is delivering messages and when, and then deliver team performance. I think we\u2019ve done a pretty good job of that. It\u2019s a collaborative process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a sense that people want to pick holes in us at the moment. I\u2019m not sure why, but we\u2019ve got ourselves to a final [in Europe], so we\u2019re clearly doing well. We\u2019re constantly trying to improve. Next week, win, lose or draw, we\u2019ll have a proper deep dive into how we want to evolve our game and that direction of travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen said that little tweaks were made from week to week. \u201cIt\u2019s not like you\u2019re going to throw it all out based on one performance,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not realistic to do because it would be too confusing for the players, so you need some level of consistency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made drastic changes, particularly when you think of bringing different coaches into the building because they offer different skill sets. We\u2019ve always been naturally inquisitive about how the top teams do things.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do South Africa go into World Cups, as an example? Jacques has played a very significant role in that, from what I\u2019ve seen, in terms of the system, but also from talking to people who worked closely with those involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re incredibly lucky to have him here. He\u2019s a genius in terms of what he does. In his own mind, I think he is fully committed to Leinster, so please don\u2019t get confused by that. I would be of the same mind.<\/p>\n

\"RónanR\u00f3nan Kelleher has been named in place of the injured Dan Sheehan for Saturday’s Stormers game. Photograph: Grace Halton\/INPHO <\/p>\n

\u201cThe group loves working with him as well. I know they do. When Stu [Lancaster] left to take on the role with Racing and become a head coach again, everybody understood his reasons at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a significant step, but we think these things through in terms of what it will look like. We lived our way through that, but I still think it\u2019s amazing for the playing group to experience something different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think, in terms of what I said last week, attacking the game on both sides of the ball \u2013 attacking when we have it, which is the Leinster way, but also attacking when we don\u2019t have it. That\u2019s maybe slightly different, but the players love that aggressive mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo better man to deliver that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the disappointment of a lacklustre first-half display against Bordeaux B\u00e8gles that decided the Champions Cup final, Leinster produced the sort of performance Cullen is looking for in last Saturday\u2019s United Rugby Championship<\/a> (URC) quarter-final win over the Lions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The opposition barely mustered a challenge, however, and the Stormers \u2013 who made the trip on Monday from Cape Town to Dublin \u2013 are likely to provide a sterner examination at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday<\/a> evening with a place in the URC final at stake.<\/p>\n

Cullen has made three changes to his side. Jamison Gibson-Park replaces Luke McGrath at scrumhalf, Josh van der Flier returns at openside in place of Scott Penny and R\u00f3nan Kelleher comes in for the injured Dan Sheehan. <\/p>\n

However, Tadhg Furlong and Robbie Henshaw were ruled out through injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have picked up a few niggles and knocks, but the flip side is some guys are back with a bit of freshness,\u201d Cullen said. \u201cThe Stormers are a serious outfit and we have to be crystal clear on what\u2019s required.\u201d<\/p>\n

LEINSTER (v Stormers): Hugo Keenan; Jimmy O\u2019Brien, Rieko Ioane, Jamie Osborne, James Lowe; Sam Prendergast, Jamison Gibson-Park; Andrew Porter, R\u00f3nan Kelleher, Thomas Clarkson; Joe McCarthy, James Ryan; Max Deegan, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris (capt).<\/p>\n

Replacements: Gus McCarthy, Alex Usanov, Rabah Slimani, Diarmuid Mangan, Jack Conan, Luke McGrath, Harry Byrne, Garry Ringrose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is becoming a thing: another Thursday afternoon, another Zoom call at Leinster HQ and another Leo Cullen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[183521,85,46,221463,221464,80579,148902,221462,221465,122603,105,170298],"class_list":["post-477329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-champions-cup","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jacques-nienaber","tag-jamison-gibson-park","tag-josh-van-der-flier","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-leo-cullen","tag-ronan-kelleher","tag-south-africa-rugby","tag-sports","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}