LONG READ How Leinster bullied the Bulls at Croke Park

It was one of those jokes that isn’t really a joke; the double-edged compliment which contains just enough of the truth to be totally credible. Near the inception of the United Rugby Championship, Bulls head coach Jake White famously quipped the two best sides in the competition were Leinster A and Leinster B. Stormers supremo John Dobson complimented the Dublin province as “the Crusaders of the north” a couple of years later.

The hemlock enters silently at the ear. There has been no shortage of applause emanating from South Africa for Leinster, but up until last weekend it had only been used as a slow poison to lull Leo Cullen’s men into a false sense of security. The formula had been clear: wait until another titanic Leinster effort expired at the latter stages of the Champions Cup, whisper the flattery in the inevitable psychological ‘trough’ which followed, then launch a violent ambush in the semi-finals of the URC.

It had worked in the inaugural season in 2022, when White’s Bulls surprised the men in blue 27-26 at the RDS. One year later, Graham Rowntree’s Munster took their cue from South Africa and overturned the odds by a single point at the Aviva Stadium, before beating the Stormers in the final. The ex-England forwards coach called Leinster “a great team… with very nice skills” before Jack Crowley sank the great blue dreadnought with his late drop-goal. In 2024, it was the Bulls who left the Dublin dream of ‘the double’ in tatters once again with a 25-20 victory at Loftus Versveld.

White was at it again before the grand final on Saturday. He had chastised the assembled local media in midweek: “You guys are harsh on Leinster, but they are the benchmark for the Bulls.” Except this time, the psychological massage did not have the expected outcome. On the Saturday after the Wednesday, it was the men in blue who hid in ambush, before roaring out with a controlled violence in all the areas that mattered.

They achieved their aim through raw forward dominance at the set-piece and in contact, by delivering the kind of blunt-force trauma Leinster teams have probably forgotten at the pointy end of the last four or five seasons; by remembering the lost art of challenging an opponent at their point of greatest strength.

On this occasion, White’s praise after the 32-7 defeat was entirely fulsome and heartfelt, and transparently without the edge of any pre-game agenda.

“You have to understand, this is not a normal rugby team,” he stressed.

“It’s just a different league altogether and that’s why Leinster supporters are probably so disappointed because they were waiting for that performance the whole year – and we just happened to get the 40 minutes they were waiting for the whole year.

“I say again to all the Irish, I don’t think they give the credit to that Leinster team. They are well coached, they are fantastic guys as well.”

There was just the hint of a suggestion Leinster are operating at a level above the rest of the URC. White then grasped the real nettle, taking the opportunity to underline the need for far greater strength in South Africa’s four home franchises which I observed here.

“The lesson I have taken from that [loss] is we need more international players to play in our province. I need what Leinster have. I need to be able to fight fire with fire.

“They are sitting in the coaching box, 19–0 up, and [they] say, ‘RG [Snyman] – warm up’. They put him on and let him menace the defence like he did tonight.

“I keep banging the same drum. I have coached some of the best players in the world, players who have won the player of the year [award] twice.

“If you’re playing against 23 internationals – I think today Leinster were short with only 22 – there is a complete difference. That’s a phenomenal provincial team.”

If South Africa are to stay in Europe and become genuine threats at the play-off stages of the URC and Champions Cup, the four franchises need deeper squads, and a withdrawal from the Rugby Championship and the year-round drain on playing resources it entails. White knows it, and people should listen to the man closest to the furnace, not those nodding from an armchair.

The reason the lesson stands more chance of being learned this time around is the Dubliners trumped the Bulls in the suits of the game where they are usually the masters. In regular season play, the Bulls dominated the scrum and scored quickly from the lineout positions their scrum penalties created.

The Bulls averaged three and a half scrum penalty wins per game and won 37% of all scrum feeds on both sides to penalty during the regular season. When the ball went to the corner, they scored more efficiently from phases one-three of the ensuing lineout than any other team in the league. Their total of 80 tries scored derived from the lowest possession base of the entire URC.

White admitted as much in the build-up to the final. The scrum and short-range maul were at the forefront of his consciousness.

“[The scrum] has been an element we have tried to improve on, and there is no doubt our scrum has made significant strides in the last couple of seasons. That’s through personnel as well, which you can understand.

“I mean, why would a guy like Rabah Slimani be signed by Leinster? There is only one reason, because they see that as an area where they want make sure they can improve. A guy like Rabah Slimani comes along and there’s something in the middle of the scrum [and] lineout that they needed.”

The front row is one area where White can field the strength in depth he desires with all his voorspelers fit and firing. Gerhard Steenekamp has established himself as the first-choice back-up to Ox Nche for the Springboks at loose-head prop, with one of the best young all-round tight forwards in the Republic [Jan-Hendrik Wessels] sitting just behind him. On the other side of the scrum, monstrous 144kg ex-Harlequin Wilco Louw would start for many other top-tier international sides, and he has ample backup in the form of ever-reliable Mornay Smith and young giant Francois Klopper. In between White can pick from Wessels, Johan Grobbelaar and ‘the angry warthog’ Akker van der Merwe.

Even the legendary Buurman van Zyl would be pleased with that lot: those men are worthy successors to the lustrous mantle of Northern Transvaal front row play. In the continued absence of Tadhg Furlong and with Slimani glued to his bench role, young Thomas Clarkson was chosen to oppose that formidable array from the key position of tight-head prop.

The Blackrock College man and Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup winner is a typical product of the developmental model in the region. Blackrock are one of the traditional ‘big six’ schools [the others are Terenure, Belvedere, Saint Mary’s, Saint Michael’s and Clongowes Wood] which form part of the Leinster Schools feeder system, although there are plenty of other notables such as Castleknock, Wesley and Gonzaga. Players emerge from a school system which is already the ‘equivalent-plus’ of a network of dedicated rugby academies. School matches are extremely well attended and enjoy a high media profile, thanks to journalists scattered like acorns from the branches of the same tree, like ex-‘Rock’-man, Irish Times writer Gerry Thornley.

Some 80% of the 23-man matchday squad selected for the Six Nations decider against France came from fee-paying schools which enjoy the best support in terms of coaching and equipment. Leinster coaches will attend schools training sessions regularly to upskill individuals and teach the systems being used at a higher level. Thirty-seven members of the current Leinster senior squad still live within a 30-mile radius of Dublin. That seamless network of support frequently enables the province to push players through to the top level far more quickly than ‘normal’.

Clarkson is probably only the third-ranked tight-head at Leinster [behind Furlong and Slimani] and he has still only registered 30 starts over the past five seasons – but within the same timeframe he has already accumulated six full Ireland caps at the youthful age [for a prop] of 25. The match-up against Wessels and the rest of an imposing Bulls front row represented the biggest test of his career to date, and he proved more than ready for the task at hand.

The first scrum of the game often tends to establish refereeing perceptions for rest of it, and it was there Clarkson did the damage.

The tight-head wins the hit and takes that vital first step forward immediately afterwards, and even winger James Lowe is moved to run in and congratulate him for his efforts. Leinster won the scrum penalty count 3-1 directly from the Clarkson-Wessels battle, and the Bulls man ended up in some unfamiliar positions indeed.

Leinster’s scrum dominance enabled them to create more short-range driving starters from lineout than their opponents, and they had scored two tries from such situations within the first half hour of the game.

Leinster dominated in the two areas of the game where the Bulls expected to build their platform, and they stopped them on 31 attacking phases in the home 22 in the last 10 minutes of the first half. That was game, set and match to the Dubliners. Scrum, maul, and a little bit of Jordie Barrett magic from a set move: as the song says, who could ask for anything more?

White may have only been joking a few years ago when he jested tongue-in-cheek Leinster had the two best teams in the competition, but it created a sense of expectation around a ‘Dubliner Double’ of URC and Champions Cup that has been hard to overcome. It has been more agony than ecstasy: ‘Lose the first. Struggle with the second’.

Now Leinster have at least completed one part of the bargain, and they have done it by going back to their forwards and bullying the Bulls in the showpiece match. It has underlined the hardships of South Africa’s ‘global season’ in red ink and restored some faith in the Irish production line on the east coast. There is a ways to go towards that coveted fifth star but Leinster, and Clarkson, have put their best foot forward.