‘The determination is there. We want to do better in this competition’
IT MAY NOT have been the rigorous examination they were preparing themselves for, but assistant coach Tyler Bleyendaal doesn’t believe the one-sided nature of last Saturday’s win over Harlequins at Croke Park will leave Leinster at a disadvantage.
After scoring 10 tries over the course of the action, the eastern province sauntered to a 62-0 triumph over ‘Quins at the Round of 16 stage of the Champions Cup in GAA HQ.
There might be a sense that Leinster could have done with a tougher assignment ahead of this Friday’s Champions Cup quarter-final clash in the Aviva Stadium against Glasgow Warriors – who progressed to the last-eight with an impressive 43-19 win over Leicester Tigers.
Yet in addition to expressing his satisfaction with how the game unfolded in Croke Park, Bleyendaal stressed that what happened last Saturday was always unlikely to have a massive bearing on what followed it.
“I don’t think it matters. You can have arguments for both ways. If you had a really tough match, then you might feel differently about it, but we had good transfer from some of the stuff we trained and we got that in the match. I think Glasgow will be a different challenge regardless of how that match went,” Bleyendaal explained at a Leinster media briefing yesterday.
“We turn the page pretty quick really and get into our preparation. That’s just what it is, I think. It was a real grind at that start of the match, wasn’t it [when Harlequins applied some early pressure]? We did well to push through that.
“I liked the way we kicked on towards the end of the match as well. I feel like the game lost a bit of air just before half-time there, but we got it going in the second half and then I thought we finished strongly. Which is what you want when your bench comes on, which is great.”
After previously spending close to four years as part of the backroom team at Super Rugby outfit the Hurricanes, former Munster back Bleyendaal joined the Leinster set-up last summer as a replacement for his fellow New Zealander (and current Ireland assistant coach) Andrew Goodman.
In each of the three seasons that preceded his appointment, the eastern province suffered defeat at the semi-final and final stages of the United Rugby Championship and the Investec Champions Cup respectively.
While the disappointment of not picking up major silverware in the past three years hasn’t been spoken about at great length since he arrived at the province, Bleyendaal acknowledged there is a determination amongst this Leinster group to finally get over the line in the current term – particularly when it comes to Europe’s top-tier competition.
“Definitely the determination is there. We’re not dwelling on the past, but we have acknowledged it. That we want to do better in this competition [Champions Cup]. It’s just one week at a time. It comes back to that, which is a bit of a cliché, but you can’t look ahead of Glasgow at the moment.
“We’re then just focusing on the process. We get in on Monday, we put the plan in place, try to freshen up the bodies. It’s a short turnaround for both teams and it’s going to be a good competition on Friday night.”
Whereas head coach Leo Cullen remained in South Africa for Leinster’s United Rugby Championship meeting with the Sharks in Durban last Saturday week – seven days on from facing the Bulls in Pretoria – Bleyendaal returned to the province’s UCD base along with Jacques Nienaber and Robin McBryde to oversee training with a different group.
This cohort largely consisted of those who featured against Harlequins in Croke Park and while Max Deegan and Ross Byrne both made appearances off the bench at Jones’ Road, the remaining 21 players who saw game time in a 10-7 win at the expense of the Sharks weren’t included in Leinster’s most recent match day squad.
However, given there is such a short turnaround from the Harlequins game, some of those who helped the province to round off their mini tour of South Africa in a successful fashion could force their way into the reckoning this Friday.
“The guys that played over in South Africa definitely put their hands up for selection and that’s the competition in the squad. Whatever match you’re playing in, you’re trying to perform as an individual, but also as a group. Everyone wants to play at the top level or in the big knockout games, so there’s definitely competition for positions for this game,” Bleyendaal added.