Rugby Daily | URC Grand Final BUMPER preview!
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Off the Balls Rugby Daily with Bank of Ireland, a proud sponsor of Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster Rugby. Never stop competing. You're very welcome along to Friday's Rugby Daily. I'm Cameron Hill. We've made it to another weekend, folks, and it's a URC Grand Finals special for you today. We'll hear from both the Leinster and Bulls camps ahead of tonight's game. Some off-the-ball regulars will offer their thoughts on how the game is going to go. And there's a couple of highlights from chats we had this week with bona fide Leinster royalty. First up today, it's game day for Leinster, who are hoping to retain the URC title tonight. In a repeat of last year's decider, Leo Cullen's side go up against three-time runners-up, the Bulls, at Croke Park.
There are three changes from their semi-final win over the Stormers at the Aviva Stadium a fortnight ago, with Gerry Kerr, Tadhg Furlong and Tommy O'Brien all returning. James Lowe starts on the wing in his final game for Leinster. He's leaving Ireland this summer, reportedly for a move to Japan. It's also a last run out in blue for scrum half Luke McGrath. He's on the bench and heading to Perpignan this summer. Cullen says those factors make tonight's game especially emotional.
The guys are excited to get out there. you know, one final push, isn't it? Some of them will never play for Leinster, potentially ever again. It's important that we relish the time together. So we didn't have very many sessions. There was a number of sessions and you realise, OK, the players, first of all, realise that's all the sessions that we have left. And it's, OK, let's commit to these sessions going into a final. And then we're... off we go now into the game. So, he's trying to get the balance right. But we also addressed this in the final part as well, because if you think when we played the final after Bilbao, we sort of had a plan, there was a bit of a sort of decompress off the back of that, whether we won that game or lost that game.
So, he was trying to stay consistent to that plan to get ready for a quarterfinal, because, listen, if you won that game, trying to get, obviously, Bordeaux, as an example, won the final, they won that game. Off the back of that, they struggled to get up for the couple of weeks after that, which is, again, that's the mental challenge, isn't it, of the game that we play, because you've got to get up for the physical challenge. And that's the beauty of these occasions. It's proper gladiatorial stuff, isn't it? And that's what everyone loves about the game.
the biggest game of Tipperary Man Jerry Kerr's career so far at Loosehead. The 25-year-old only signed his first professional contract last September, joining the province's senior side on a short-term deal. He had been playing AIL rugby up until that point. Since then, he's made 16 appearances, including six starts, and will join Connacht next season. And the Roscrae native will pack down tonight against Francois Klopper and possibly Springboks tighthead Vilco Love, who's on the bench for the Bulls. The good news from a Leinster perspective is that Andrea Piardi is the referee for tonight's game. Therefore, it's got a lot of change out of the Italian official at scrum time during last year's decider.
Alan Quinlan joined Shane Hannan on this morning's off-the-ball breakfast. He reckons tonight's game will be hugely swayed by which pack comes out on top.
That whole Leinster pack, they've got to perform and they've got to make sure that they lock that scrum out and they have that ability to win their first and foremost win their own ball and then have an ability to to compete and go against the opposition because they make a lot of penalties out of opposition teams.
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