{"id":623377,"date":"2026-06-05T21:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/623377\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T21:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:46:11","slug":"leinster-rugby-nienaber-fully-committed-to-leinster-leo-cullen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/623377\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster Rugby: Nienaber &#8216;fully committed&#8217; to Leinster &#8211; Leo Cullen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leinster head coach Leo Cullen says coach Jacques Nienaber is &#8220;fully committed&#8221; to the province who are &#8220;lucky to have&#8221; him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The two-time World Cup winner with the Springboks had cast doubt on his Leinster future earlier in the week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cpdpg38g8e1o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after claiming he does not feel valued by the media and fans in Ireland.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Cullen is hopeful he will remain as part of the coaching staff and that Nienaber&#8217;s comments may have been misunderstood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think what he [Nienaber] was referring to is there are no guarantees in sport, is there?&#8221; Cullen said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So, I think what he is trying to get across, is that when there is a lot of flak on the team from media, sometimes a club will make changes, and I think that is what he was referring to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But I think in his own mind, yes, he is fully committed to Leinster so please don&#8217;t get confused by that and I would be of the same opinion as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nienaber is under contract until 2027 and helped Leinster win the United Rugby Championship title last year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, they suffered their fifth defeat in a Champions Cup final since 2018 in May when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cddpn1ly4y5o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bordeaux-Begles produced a ruthless display in Bilbao.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cullen added that he has enjoyed Neinaber&#8217;s three years at the province and confirmed he is in his future plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Jacques is brilliant, I have to say I have really enjoyed working with Jacques,&#8221; Cullen continued. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think we have a great group of coaches here. I think we have a great staff as well; there are so many great people in the building and it&#8217;s a very enjoyable place to work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are very lucky to have him [Neinaber]. He is a brilliant person, brilliant individual to work with and that is very much the plan for sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster head coach Leo Cullen says coach Jacques Nienaber is &#8220;fully committed&#8221; to the province who are &#8220;lucky&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-623377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}