Jacques Nienaber living with ‘consequences’ of controversial decisions amid vehement backlash
Leinster back Jordie Barrett and an inset of senior coach Jacques Nienaber.
Jacques Nienaber concedes that the Leinster coaching staff will have to live and die by their decisions following the Irish club’s Investec Champions Cup defeat to Northampton Saints.
Leinster headed into the fixture as overwhelming favourites but Saints claimed a stunning 34-37 victory thanks to a hat-trick of tries from Tommy Freeman and further scores from Henry Pollock and James Ramm.
The defensive performance was in stark contrast to that of the last-16 and quarter-final, where Leinster nilled both Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors.
Following the defeat, the Leinster coaches have come under fire from the fans, with many bemoaning the selections, particularly with Jordie Barrett benched for the clash with Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose preferred in the centre.
Live with the consequences
Speaking to the media, Nienaber defended the selection calls that the coaches made and pointed to the clash against Northampton last season for the thinking behind their decisions.
“As coaches, we select a team that we think will get us a result on Saturday and if you look at all the games that we played this season, that’s been the philosophy,” he said.
“If we look back at Northampton last year, we felt they actually ended quite strongly at the back end of that game.
“So we thought maybe having an impactful bench could take that away from them. We make a decision and you are not always sure. Hindsight is always a perfect science; we win that game, and no one would have these questions and it would be ‘what a brilliant tactic’. But because we lose people will listen to this and will go: ‘That’s bulls**t.’ Because you just didn’t win. When you lose the game, you have to live with the consequences of your decision.”
He continued: “So if I look at it from that point of view, we went into half-time down 27-15 and we won the second half 19-10 – that was what we were looking for but we didn’t want to be that far down at half-time.
“If you look at the Harlequins game at 60 minutes we were leading 31-0 and then the same impact came off the bench, and we scored another 31 points in the last 20 minutes. I can justify it here, but at the end of the day, we selected a team that we thought would get us a result, and if we didn’t get it. We will just have to live with the criticism that we get because hindsight makes perfect science.”
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Andrew Porter and Jack Conan were also named on the bench for the clash, but Barrett’s inclusion among the replacements was the main talking point.
“The Jordie thing has been a big debate. I don’t think there’s a massive drop-off [between Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose and Barrett],” he said.
“It’s not like the two players you selected to start and the player on the bench is an academy player.”
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Going for the three
While the selections vexed fans and pundits, the decisions late on in the match were also met with backlash as Leinster turned down the opportunity to level the scores and opted to go for the jugular instead.
This looked to be the correct decision when Ross Byrne dotted down in the corner, but the fly-half was denied by the officiating team.
Like with the selection calls, Nienaber said that it is easy to look back at with hindsight.
“Going for the three (points), same thing there,” he said.
“If you go for the three and something happens like you miss the kick, people will say you scored four tries taking penalties five metres out… and in that moment, they are 14 men after the forward’s yellow card, so if we didn’t convert the kick, people would have said ‘they were 14, you guys were excellent inside there 22, 5m out, why didn’t you go for the win?’
“Again, hindsight. Now, they will say that because we couldn’t score with a tap penalty or with a maul, maybe we should have gone for the three, but again, because you lose the game, I can see both sides of the coin…”
On the decision to turn down the shot at goal, he added: “That call is up to the players. They are the ones who have a real feel for the game on the pitch and you have to trust them there.
“Had we kicked the penalty, we would have still had to exit, and we would still have needed to win the game. A penalty kick wouldn’t have won the game, it would have taken us to extra-time and then we still would have needed to win the game.
“That’s the beauty of sport, you live and die by your decisions.”
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