Cullen shifts focus to Champions Cup

Editor

Leinster boss Leo Cullen admitted his focus has already shifted to their European Champions Cup opener against Wasps on Sunday, after his side claimed a narrow 19-15 win over the Scarlets at the RDS Arena on Friday.

The Irish province ended Scarlets' six-match winning run and the result moved them to within three points of the Welsh region who are second in the table.

“It was tough out there," Cullen told RTE

"We’re happy to get a result. It wasn’t perfect, we didn’t expect it to be perfect, so we’re delighted to get a win. We take a break from the league now, into Europe for a couple of weeks, and we’ll reassess where we are in the league post those two games.

“I’m trying to park this game in my head – I’m already thinking, ‘what time are Wasps playing at this weekend?’.

“We had two really good battles against Wasps last year, they’ve recruited very heavily over the summer.

“They’ve got a lot of threats across the board so it’s going to be a really tough challenge for our guys."

After their clash with Wasps in Dublin, Leinster have an away date with Bath and Cullen is happy with his players' performances ahead of some crucial fixtures.

“We want it to be competitive," he said of his squad. 

"We’re into a big block of games. It’s important that we have faith in guys to play and we have that competitive environment in training as well.

“Scarlets are very aggressive at the breakdown, they're borderline on many incidents, the way they play the game. We tried to manage that in the build-up to the game. 

"It wasn't a surprise to us the way they approached that area. It was frustrating to play against at times but we need to be more accurate in some of the things we did.

“We’re always expecting a bit of rustiness at this stage of the season. 

"I know it’s game seven but for a lot of players it’s their first game back here so we were expecting it to be a bit disjointed. We’ll take a win, move on, and get ready for the next challenge."