IT HASN’T been without its challenges, but Jack Boyle’s first season as a bona fide Leinster senior player is proving to be an extremely productive one.

Following three years as a member of the eastern province’s Academy – a period that saw him amassing 11 first-team appearances for the Blues – Boyle joined James Culhane and Paddy McCarthy in earning a spot in Leo Cullen’s senior set-up for the 2024/25 season.

A part of the Ireland U20s side that earned a Six Nations Grand Slam in 2022, he was originally named in the Emerging Ireland squad for their tour of South Africa in October only for a foot injury to rule the loosehead prop out of contention.

Upon regaining full fitness, Boyle started in Leinster’s United Rugby Championship triumph over Connacht in Galway on 19 October and was subsequently selected as a training panellist in the Ireland camp for last month’s Autumn Nations Series.

He later returned to the Leinster team for another URC interprovincial victory at the expense of Ulster, before making his European Champions Cup debut as a starter against Bristol at Ashton Gate last Sunday week.

“I suppose a bit of a whirlwind start to the season. I thought I went pretty well in pre-season and picked up a bit of an injury for a few weeks. That set me back and then I actually ended up missing the Emerging Ireland tour, which was a real pity. It was something I was looking forward to,” Boyle said at a Leinster media briefing on Tuesday.

“I was delighted to get into the [Irish] environment. You hear the lads speaking about it so much, always ranting and raving about it. How much they love the environment and it’s the people in there, coaches, players, backroom staff, that make it special. I suppose getting a taster is something that makes me hungry to try to get back there.

“The ball’s in my court. They had a look at me and it’s up to me to push on and hopefully get back into camp. I suppose there’s a path there, but it’s up to me to keep playing well. To put one foot in front of the other game-by-game and see how I go.”

While his time with the Ireland senior squad saw Boyle measuring himself against some of the very best props in the country, this is something he arguably experiences every week as a provincial player.

The first and second-choice looseheads respectively from an international perspective, Andrew Porter and Cian Healy also consistently challenge each other for the number one jersey in the Leinster side. Despite having an ultimate ambition to make the position his own in years to come, Boyle takes plenty of inspiration from this experienced loosehead duo.

Although he isn’t competing with them for selection, Boyle also looks towards tighthead specialists Tadhg Furlong and Rabah Slimani for guidance as he continues his progression through the professional ranks of the game.

“Ports has been unbelievable to me. Not only Ports, but someone like Cian Healy. Then the likes of Rabah Slimani, Tadhg Furlong as well. I am lucky and grateful and privileged to be in the position I am in — learning off four or five of the best in the business. It’s a great, vast knowledge from different parts of world rugby. Not only Irish rugby.

“I’m grateful and delighted I get to learn off these lads. Ever since I got into the system two or three years ago when I was in the building, Cian Healy and Andrew Porter have been unbelievable to me. Watching training with me, helping me, giving me little nuggets of knowledge. I’m extremely grateful and hopefully they know that.”

After missing out on last weekend’s Champions Cup win over Clermont at the Aviva Stadium, Boyle is expected to feature against Connacht for the second time this season when Peter Wilkins’ westerners pay a visit to the same venue in the URC this Saturday.

While there is a strong chance he will find himself face-to-face with an experienced operator in the form of Finlay Bealham — who started all four games that Ireland played in the Autumn Nations Series — Boyle stressed that he and the rest of the Leinster front-row are ready to leave their mark on the contest.

“Finlay is an incredible player. He’s a great man as well. I got on very well with him, but it’s up to us to get our process right and to stamp our authority on the game. We’re looking to have a go at set-piece time as well. We’re not just there to give it a dead duck, we’re properly ready to have a go,” Boyle added.

Daire Walsh

It hasn’t been without its challenges, but Jack Boyle’s first season as a Leinster senior player is proving to be a productive one.

Following three years as a member of the eastern province’s academy – a period that saw him amassing 11 first-team appearances for the Blues – Boyle joined James Culhane and Paddy McCarthy in earning a spot in Leo Cullen’s senior set-up for the 2024/25 season.

While he admitted their level of performance didn’t reach the standard they have set for themselves, Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber has insisted the province were ultimately satisfied to come away with a 15-7 win over Clermont at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday.

Thanks to opening half tries from Garry Ringrose and Jordie Barrett, Leinster brought a five-point cushion into the interval of their European Champions Cup Pool Two clash with the Top 14 outfit in Irish Rugby HQ.

WHILE HE ADMITTED their level of performance didn’t reach the standard they have set for themselves, Jacques Nienaber has insisted Leinster were ultimately satisfied with their 15-7 win over Clermont at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday.

Thanks to opening half tries from Garry Ringrose and Jordie Barrett, the eastern province brought a five-point cushion into the interval of their European Champions Cup Pool Two clash with the Top 14 outfit in Irish Rugby HQ.

Yet a 48th-minute penalty from Sam Prendergast was the only score the hosts mustered after the restart as they fell short of matching their bonus point victory away to Bristol on the previous weekend.

Despite the above, Leinster senior coach Nienaber was in a generally positive frame of mind as he reflected on the triumph against Clermont at a media briefing in UCD yesterday.

“You must always cherish victories because there will come a time when you don’t get them. Then you kind of wish that you celebrated them more when you did get them. If you look at Man City and where they are now, things can change in a heartbeat, so you must always cherish victories because they are not a given in pro sport,” Nienaber said.

“Putting that aside, the disappointment is not that we won, the disappointment is if we look at our performance measured against the standard that we set ourselves, I don’t think that was on par and that’s why we’re disappointed in our performance. But we’re very happy with the win and you have to celebrate the win.”

Nevertheless, it was a far from vintage display by Leinster on the day and the province’s head coach Leo Cullen remarked in the press conference that followed their showdown with Clermont that ‘we need to look at ourselves as coaches and go away and be very self-reflecting in terms of messaging and all the rest’.

Although he stressed that he didn’t want to say what Cullen thinks, Nienaber acknowledged there is always more that coaches can do to get the very best out of the players at their disposal.

“I think as a leadership, when you don’t get a performance like that, you must always start with yourself. That’s how my brain works. Knowing these coaches, I think the majority of us will always go ‘You must look at the leadership first and say, listen, where did we go wrong? What did we do, or didn’t do, during the week that we could have done better?’ and then you build on to that.

“I think it’s easy just to go ‘listen, this is what was wrong on the pitch.’ I think the 80 minutes you see on Saturday is but a small chunk of the preparation and the work that goes into getting a performance. You have to look at the whole build-up and see where we could have done better.”

One of the biggest criticisms of Leinster’s performance against Clermont revolved around their line-out. Over the course of the action, the Blues managed to win just nine of the 16 throws that were delivered by either Ronan Kelleher or Gus McCarthy.

This is a stat that was seen as particularly alarming for a team that are seeking to challenge strongly for silverware at the business end of the current season, but Nienaber offered a detailed explanation for why there might have been issues with their line-out in the Aviva last Saturday.

From the beginning of next month, a number of law changes are to come into effect with a view to speeding up the game of rugby. One of them is that a line-out must be formed within 30 seconds and this is something Leinster have already been trying to implement in recent weeks.

“From the 1st of January, it will be part of our game. It is something that we have been working on the training pitch. We tried new creative things and that is what we did this weekend. It’s not necessarily just the speed, but we felt we had to bring in some creativity within our line-out,” Nienaber added.

“That was the talk before the game ‘listen, we are going to try new stuff’. Maybe if you go in hindsight ‘should you do it in Europe?’, but the nice thing in Europe, we know Clermont is a quality opposition and they’ve got a very good line-out defence.

“You can maybe park the evolution in your line-out and do it against a team that’s maybe not as good a line-out contesting team. But the question then is always, ‘Will they ask enough questions of you?’

“I think if you go back and you look at our URC line-out completion, I think it’s close to 90% if not 90%. If you look at the Bristol game, where we weren’t too creative and didn’t want to try new things, because it was the start of Europe. Our line-out success rate, I think we lost one line-out in the Bristol game.

“Obviously it’s a little bit of both. It comes down to the piece we just spoke about. Now, how do you stay at the top? You have to be creative. You have to evolve. You have to try new things. Sometimes it comes at a risk, like it did this weekend. Thankfully for us, we still got the win, but we are still disappointed in our performance.”

Daire Walsh