‘Backs to the wall mentality’.
For so long, the five words have been uttered by Munster players at press briefings, during post-match interviews and behind closed doors.
The attitude is one of everybody being against Munster and no-one from outside the province, let alone country, wanting to see them doing well.
Declan Kidney, during his time as Munster coach, and Paul O’Connell have both fostered this spirit. Speak to Peter O’Mahony, their current captain, for five minutes and you will hear the phrase at least once.
Lacking the free-flowing yet clinical [turning opportunities into points] rugby of recent years, Leinster have reverted to the stance of their inter-provincial rivals.
As much as the media is pulling for Leinster to prevent a Toulon dynasty, their form suggests a macabre spectacle of missed tackles, breakdown murder and leaked tries in Marseille, on Sunday. Matt O’Connor’s team have a record of W: 14, D: 4, L:8 this season. They have lost to Dragons, currently ninth in the Guinness PRO12, home and away.
They battled past Bath in a home quarter-final and Mike Ford is still asking himself ‘How?’
The attitude affected is ‘no-one fancies us but we don’t care’. It was out in force at Leinster’s press gathering today.
Forwards coach Leo Cullen balked at the suggestion that a European Cup semi-final against any team should be deemed a “freebie”. He cared not a jot that the soundbite came from his former team-mate, Brian O’Driscoll. Cullen commented:
‘Not many people giving us much of a shot by the sounds of it, but I’ve been in this situation before where people write you off. We’ll go out and prepare, we go in with a clear plan into the game and the lads are in really good spirits, despite losing at the weekend and excited by the prospect of going over to Marseille…
‘…I wouldn’t ever think of it like that. As a coach, for me [it’s about] giving the lads a clear plan going in to the game. I wouldn’t get too caught up in that.’
Sean Cronin, who refused to divulge anything further about his alleged run-in with a knife-wielding car clamper, but did stress that Leinster deserve respect from Toulon due to their cup-winning pedigree.
He said, ‘We are going to go down there and give it a lash. I don’t think anybody is giving us a chance really. The bookies have us [down to lose] by 11 or 12 points. The backs against the wall mentality. It might suit us being the underdog.’
Jimmy Gopperth was perhaps the most open of the three Leinster men. The New Zealand out-half, who is off to Wasps next season, believes Leinster need to be ‘ready to roll or else we will be put to the sword’.
He added, ‘People are always going to question your ability if results are not going your way… We have been poor this year. We have not gelled together. We have been a bit unfortunate this year with a lot of internationals coming and going. There have been a lot of disruptions.
‘We have to be better than that and make the opportunities count when we wear the blue jersey. It has come down to this. We are 80 minutes away from it being a good season or a very, very poor season.’
As for taking down ball-carrying behemoths like Mathieu Bastareaud and Steffon Armitage, Gopperth remarked, ‘They are huge men but you have to get up in their face… I think the bootlaces might be the better option [rather than a choke tackle]… We have to go out there, get our line-speed up and hoe into them.’
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