Ulster expose key weakness in ‘susceptible’ Jacques Nienaber-led Leinster defence

Ulster head coach Dan McFarland insists that Leinster’s defence will always be vulnerable to cross-field kicks if they continue to defend as they have done.

The Ulstermen claimed a famous victory at the RDS Arena on New Year’s Day, securing a 22-21 triumph over Leo Cullen’s men.

They inflicted Leinster’s second United Rugby Championship defeat of the campaign by leaning heavily on the kicking game of Billy Burns.

Jacques Nienaber’s defence

Ulster’s fly-half set up three tries with that cross-field tactic as they found a way past the rush defence employed by ex-Springboks boss Jacques Nienaber.

McFarland doesn’t believe that beating that type of rearguard using kicks “is new knowledge”, but it will certainly give hope to Leinster’s future opponents.

“If you play the kind of defence that Leinster are going to play this year, they are susceptible to kicking,” he told reporters.

“There was some high quality and accurate kicking, Billy (Burns) is one of the best in the game at that – I genuinely mean that.

“Yeah, definitely it was a plan but you have to have variety in that, be able to do it in different ways and not be obvious.

“Setting it up and planning it is difficult but those guys understand that. They have to execute it well. There was certainly one of the tries where Billy was smart, understood where our players were going to be and put the ball there, even when it wasn’t structured.

“I’m not claiming to give you new information here. Teams that play against South Africa would have done the same thing.

“Teams that blitz hard off the line are susceptible to attacking kicks, but you have to be able to execute them. Ours came off today and Billy is one of the best at it.”

Back on track

Ulster have endured a bumpy season but they have eased the pressure on McFarland with three consecutive victories.

That run started with a dominant win over French giants Racing 92 before interpro successes over Connacht and Leinster lifted them up to fourth in the URC.

“Obviously I’m very happy, it’s the best challenge in the URC coming to Leinster and to come away with a victory and the manner of it is very pleasing,” the head coach added.

“That was probably quite exciting, gutsy. To me that was a really gutsy performance from us interspersed with three brilliant tries. We took our points when we needed to take them.

“The rest of it was clench your teeth, get down in the trenches and do the work that you have to do. That’s still a victory isn’t it.”

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