DESPITE THEIR MIXED form since exiting the tournament, Jacques Nienaber has insisted Leinster’s European Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton Saints at the Aviva Stadium last month is ‘water under the bridge’ from his own perspective.

While they booked their spot in the last-four of the United Rugby Championship with a 33-21 victory over Scarlets in the Aviva on Saturday, it was a far from vintage display by the eastern province. Leinster had completed their URC regular season campaign a fortnight earlier with an underwhelming 13-5 triumph at the expense of Glasgow Warriors and it is the Scottish outfit who will now provide opposition to Leinster at the penultimate phase of the same competition at Irish Rugby HQ this coming Saturday.

Without being asked directly about the game itself, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen made reference to their 37-34 loss at the hands of Northampton on a number occasions in the press conference that followed last weekend’s win against Scarlets. The Blues supremo had stressed the need for his charges to be better in their latest semi-final encounter and how the province could have been talking about a Champions Cup final if some decisions had gone their way in the dying minutes of the Northampton game.

“Maybe with Leo [it lingers], but not for me. For me, it’s water under the bridge. Not one ounce of energy from me personally put into thinking about the Champions Cup semi-final is going to change anything. Except the lessons you learn. So maybe he referenced that,” Nienaber remarked at a Leinster media briefing on Monday.

“There’d definitely be stuff that we could have learned and that’s definitely something we can bring into that. So maybe his angle was more that. That there’s lessons that we learn in that the last knockout game that we played before last week was obviously Europe.

“Now we have had a URC one and we have another URC one. I would say his mind, he was probably talking towards that. The lessons you can take out of that.”

Although Cullen will want to make amends for that loss to Northampton, he will also be hoping his side can banish the demons of URC semi-final reversals in each of the past three seasons.

It remains to be seen if Josh van der Flier will be part of their quest to overcome Glasgow in this Aviva this weekend after a hamstring injury saw him being replaced by Scott Penny just shy of the half-hour mark against Scarlets on Saturday.

He is set to be assessed later on this week before a final decision is made on his availability for this weekend’s action, but Nienaber is keeping his fingers crossed that the openside flanker will be passed fit to play. Yet even if van der Flier doesn’t make the cut for their latest clash with Glasgow, his injury isn’t expected to be a long-term concern that might put his participation in the British & Irish Lions Tour of Australia in jeopardy.

“We hope for clearance. He went for a scan yesterday [Sunday], but I don’t think they’ve come back yet. Obviously for a semi-final, I am fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything, that he can make it. It would be nice.”

The respective calf and foot injuries for Garry Ringrose and Tommy O’Brien are also set to be assessed in the coming days, albeit both players were back running towards the end of last week and are seemingly very close to being made available for match selection.

One member of their Lions contingent that Leinster will definitely be without this weekend is Tadhg Furlong, who was also marked absent for last Saturday’s win over Scarlets with a calf issue of his own. The Wexford man remains in line to feature on his third Lions tour later this summer, but with just eight appearances to his name with either province or country in the current campaign, Nienaber acknowledged it has been a frustrating 2024/25 for Furlong.

“At the moment he gets exposure to something and symptoms flare up and then he obviously goes back. Not back, but he just doesn’t progress,” Nienaber added.

“I assume it is a tough year. I can’t talk for him, but I assume that it is a tough year for him if he hasn’t played a lot.

“Always I think for a player, it’s tough to get a rhythm. You like to get a string of games and build on your confidence and get the team to get confidence in you and you getting confidence in yourself and the team. So I think it is frustrating.”

Daire Walsh