Brian O’Driscoll weighs into Leo Cullen’s outburst as Ireland legend ‘understands’ lack of Leinster ‘sympathy’
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen and legendary Ireland centre Brian O'Driscoll.
Brian O’Driscoll can see both sides of the coin after Leo Cullen slammed the media’s coverage of Leinster following their Investec Champions Cup semi-final.
The head coach of the Dublin-based outfit defended his side after they reached the showpiece event with a 29-25 victory over Toulon at the weekend.
Leinster have been criticised over the years for the lack of silverware, having lifted the Champions Cup trophy just once since 2012.
They have consistently reached the latter stages of the biggest competitions but, considering the talent within the squad, many have expected more from the Leinstermen.
‘That’s where the sympathy leaves people’
“I understand Leo’s frustrations, but I think he probably has to understand other people’s optics,” O’Driscoll told Off The Ball.
“He’s right, it’s a very difficult competition to win and you can coast into semi-finals and finals, and they’re vastly different. Semi-finals and finals are like nothing you’ve played in the rest of the competition because the quality is just elevated so significantly.
“They’ve been on the wrong side of a couple of disappointing defeats. The one in Marseille – last minute and they don’t even have a chance to come back.
“The one in Dublin was a sucker punch, being 17 points up. The one in London against Toulouse, [Ciaran] Frawley knocks over the drop-goal and it’s different, so they’re all really marginal, they really are, but they’re on the wrong side of all of those results. That’s kind of where the sympathy leaves people.”
They lost three successive finals between 2022 and 2024, which was sandwiched in between semi-final defeats to La Rochelle and Northampton, and Leinster have come in for plenty of criticism over their inability to get the job done.
“If you pick off one of them, you go, ‘okay, fine’, but it’s four losses in a row and then Northampton last year – it’s five disappointing years in truth,” O’Driscoll said.
“From the La Rochelle semi-final, the three finals and then Northampton.
“The reality is from the outside the people will say the lion’s share of the Irish national team are made up of Leinster players. They’ve had some great overseas players, RG Snyman and Jordie Barrett. Okay, Rieko Ioane’s only got himself going in the last couple of months [but] they’re supplementing the core of the Irish team.
“I can understand that there’s not much sympathy for Leinster when it doesn’t fire because they’ve got the hallmarks of a Champions Cup-winning team, but they haven’t managed to do it in five successive years when they’ve been expected to do it.”
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Why Leo Cullen could be right
O’Driscoll also stated the case for the defence, however, and praised Cullen’s consistency while in charge of Leinster.
“That said, I saw something online around someone defending Leo and there’s huge credibility to this. He’s been in 17 semi-finals as a coach in 10 years; that’s ridiculous. Any coach would give their left arm for 17 semi-finals,” he added.
“Six trophy wins, five URCs and one Champions Cup – that’s remarkable consistency over a 10-year period.
“In one breath, I see people’s frustrations and the lack of success being delivered when this is an incredible crop of players – the quality has been there.
“But at the same time, I do have sympathy with Leo about how tough it is to win the biggest competition, and how they’ve been in the fight year on year and picked themselves up year on year.”
