WHILE A STRONG rearguard is viewed as a key ingredient for any successful team, Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber is of the belief that it is attack rather than defence that wins games at the highest level.

Over the course of the last two weekends, Leinster have kept clean sheets against Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors in the knockout rounds of the European Champions Cup. Given he was the defence specialist for South Africa’s Rugby World Cup triumphs in 2019 and 2023, you might be forgiven for thinking Nienaber would be deeply satisfied with Leinster not conceding a single point across 160 minutes of competitive fare.

Yet the eastern province also amassed a combined total of 18 tries and 114 points in their emphatic victories over Harlequins and Glasgow, and this was ultimately the most pleasing aspect of the past fortnight for Nienaber.

“I’m more happy about the points scored than the points conceded. You can’t win games with not conceding, you must win games by scoring. People always make a comment, they say ‘defence wins titles’, but you can’t win a title on defence,” Nienaber remarked at a media briefing in Leinster Rugby HQ on Monday.

“If you can’t score points, you’ll never win a game. You’ll only at best have a draw. So attack wins games, not defence. Defence can lose games. If you put a score on the scoreboard, your defence must be good enough to try and combat, and defend that score. Defence can’t win you games, it can lose you games.”

Whereas it was felt in some quarters that there was an over emphasis on defence in the months that followed Nienaber’s arrival at the eastern province – his first official fixture as part of their coaching set-up was a United Rugby Championship clash against Connacht in Galway on 2 December, 2023 – there is now a sense that Leinster are beginning to stand out as an attacking force once again. However, the ex-Springboks supremo stressed credit for the way the Blues are going about the latter side of the game should go to assistant coach Tyler Bleyendaal.

“I don’t have any say on the attack. People have a misperception that I control the attack. I don’t control the attack. I have no say in Tyler and how he wants to run the attack. I don’t micromanage him, I don’t question him, I don’t ask anything about it.

“That’s his baby, that’s his flavour. If you ask me about the attacking side of things, that you must ask Tyler. I’ve got no influence.”

During his one full season as part of the Munster coaching team with fellow South African Rassie Erasmus in 2016/17, Nienaber enjoyed two wins over Ulster in the Pro12. When the two sides met at Thomond Park on 15 April, 2017, it was a conversion from the aforementioned Bleyendaal that secured Munster a 22-20 triumph.

His opening set of encounters against the same opposition with Leinster were less successful as the northern province secured home and away victories over their interprovincial rivals during the regular season in the 2023-24 edition of the URC.

Leinster have since beaten Ulster on a brace of occasions, in last season’s URC quarter-final at the Aviva and in a round seven game at Belfast’s Kingspan Stadium in the current term to be exact.

Nonetheless, the familiarity that exists between the two teams ensures pace-setters Leinster won’t be taking anything for granted when they renew acquaintances at the Aviva in the URC this Saturday evening (kick-off 7.35pm). There is also the fact that Richie Murphy’s men showed plenty of heart before losing out on a margin of 43-31 to Bordeaux in a Champions Cup Round of 16 showdown at Stade Chaban-Delmas last Sunday week.

“That’s interprovincial derbies for you. They are tight and that’s what we expect. It’s going to be a very physical game with not a lot of space. Because both teams know each other inside out. Richie has coached here,” Nienaber added.

“Some of their players come out of our Academy, so we’ve got a good understanding of what their profile looks like. I think that’s the thing. We know so much about each other. There’s not going to be a lot of space available on the pitch, because we know each other so well. I think it’s going to be a tight game.”

Daire Walsh