Leinster coach praises 'brilliant' Nienaber ahead of URC final

Jacques Nienaber is a genius, no matter what the naysayers say.

That comes from Leinster head coach Leo Cullen, who sang Nienaber’s praises ahead of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship Grand Final, where he faces the Vodacom Bulls and in the midst of several stories over the past few months giving Nienaber the blame for any below par Leinster performance. 

Cullen wasn’t having it though, saying Nienaber had added a lot of value for the Leinster cause.

“This is our third season with Jacques, he came out to us after the last World Cup. To get to have a double World Cup-winning coach in our group, it’s remarkable, really, for us to be able to have that. Him and his family have settled into life in Dublin, and I love working with Jacques, he’s such a brilliant character,” Cullen explained.

“He gets the balance right between the fun part and the work part, which is important, because over the course of a season, you live in each other’s pockets. But he’s been immense for Leinster Rugby in terms of what we’ve all learned from him, because he’s a defensive genius really, the way I would see it. I would have admired lots of the great things that he’s done with South Africa over the years.”

Nienaber’s previous association with the Springboks, where he was head coach when they won the 2023 Rugby World Cup, means he has worked with several of the players before, and they know him well. How this translates into the final is anyone’s guess.

“To have him with the group here is amazing. His system is very much geared up for big days like this, and hopefully you’ll see it with the players in terms of how aggressive we can be from a defensive point of view when we’re really attacking the Bulls, when we don’t have possession.

“That’ll be interesting, to observe how the Bulls’ go about playing against Jacques’s defensive system, because they will have a good understanding with obviously Handre Pollard and Willie le Roux, who will know him very, very well. So it’s a fascinating dynamic in how that plays out.”

QUALITY BULLS TEAM

Cullen knows the Bulls all too well, having beaten them last season in the final and lost two semifinals - one at Loftus Versfeld and one in Dublin - against them in past URC seasons.

And he knows they will be quality this Friday night.

“There is a huge amount of quality isn’t there in the team that the Bulls have assembled. I’m very fond of Jake [White], who was there before, he did a great job in terms of assembling year on year, getting the squad better and better.

“Johan, I know from his time, even when he was with Gloucester, we played Gloucester in a preseason game, and he’s steeped in South African tradition, and he understands the mindset and what’s important in terms of both DNAs. Year on year, we can see how the teams are getting stronger and stronger. So, it's a proper challenge for us, isn’t it? What else would you want from our point of view?”

“The Bulls, as we saw in the semifinal against Glasgow, they don’t fear coming away from home. Glasgow again probably was the form team this season, and finished top of the log as well. Glasgow, 21-3 ahead in that game, you can see the Bulls, they just stay in the fight.”

Cullen knows the loss to Bordeaux in the Investec Champions’ Cup final still sits badly with the team’s supporters and he would ideally like to end the season with a cup in the trophy cabinet.

“We’ve been to a final already. We would love to have an opportunity to go back and play that final again, but as we know, we don’t get those second chances. We don’t get to play a final again. But, there’s lots of positives we can lean on from last year, but there’s also some learnings, painful learnings from a final that took place in Bilbao a few weeks ago. So it’s just about putting all that into action there for us.”

What will transpire is anyone’s guess, but Leinster will start as favourites.