Leo Cullen pushes back on 'outside perception' of Leinster as URC title reclaimed

Leo Cullen has insisted Leinster’s rollercoaster season was far more enjoyable from the inside than the narrative that built around it, after his side demolished the Bulls 36-7 at Croke Park on Friday night to become the first back-to-back champions of the URC era.

The province lost three of their first four games, shipped a heavy Heineken Champions Cup final defeat to Bordeaux-Begles in Bilbao last month, and watched key players limp off in the final itself — yet Cullen was in no mood to let the outside noise define a campaign that ends with a 10th league title and a trophy lift in front of 39,000 fans.

“I thought that was an exceptional day out there today. It was a great way to finish the season,” said Cullen.  “I thought there were so many good things in the performance today. That’s really pleasing.

“Lots of good stuff in the game. The staff, everybody’s worked their a***s off, which is good. There’s so much good out there.

“If you think, when we sat here [in Croke Park] after Round 4, losing to Munster, having lost three of our first four games, and Jerry and Alex Usanov ironically made their debuts the following week against Zebre, where we had six debutantes that day.”

Cullen also alluded to an at times testy relationship with the press, not least in the last few weeks of the season where things got tense in a number of press conferences.

“There’s been so much great things this season, you’ve a negative slant always, but there’s been lots of positives.

“The group have been incredibly tight together. It’s been a really enjoyable year. It’s amazing to be here.”

“It was just a great day for the province, which is what we want.

“There’s so much to love about the performance today because there’s definitely learnings that are being put into place performance-wise [from Bilbao].

“It’s great. Oddly enough, whatever the perception is on the outside, we’ve really enjoyed this season. We’ve had a lot of fun in the last while. It’s a great group to be a part of.

“What’s the goal for us now is to take a bit of downtime and then get another group of younger players with a few experienced guys thrown in there for different reasons, injuries and all the rest, and try to make the group better again. So that’s the cycle that we’re always on.

“It’s always trying to make these magic days, isn’t it? I thought it was amazing out there. Amazing atmosphere with the crowd and just people that really want to get behind the team.

“So for us to be at home, like, you know, they’re not going to have a big travelling fan base, so we need to make advantage of these days. And I thought it was a great day for everyone involved in Leinster Rugby.”