Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber go on the offensive, James Lowe's Leinster exit
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What are the latest developments in Irish rugby?
Hello and welcome along to the RT Rugby Podcast. It's semi-finals week in the United Rugby Championship. Leinster, the last of the Irish provinces involved, after a big win against the Lions, set up a meeting with the Stormers on Saturday at Aviva Stadium. Munster and Connacht are out. Munster hammered 45-14 by the Bulls in Pretoria. Connacht losing 33-21 to Glasgow. Bit of a missed opportunity for Stuart Lancaster's side, but a decent season all round for them. Get your emails into us, sportpodcasts.ort.ie. Share your thoughts and feelings about the rugby season. Bernard Jackman is on the couch this morning and Johnny Holland is on the line. Gents, how are we doing today? Very good, thank you. Very good, thanks.
We'll get right into it because the big story of the week is coming from Leinster and it's not necessarily Leinster's win at the weekend, which was actually a pretty decent blowout and just a good way of making sure there's no Champions Cup hangover. But it's a... A couple of very peculiar press conferences, press conference standoffs by Leo Cullen and Jack Nienaber in recent days. So the background, if you aren't familiar with it, on Saturday evening after the win against the Lions, Leo Cullen took exception to a question from a radio reporter, a pretty innocuous question really about how he has dealt with the pressure of the last couple of weeks. It was at the very, very end of the press conference on Saturday evening, about half past 10 on Saturday night, and it led to a very tense and at times awkward eight minutes of back and forth where he effectively dismissed the idea that he's even noticed a backlash against himself, saying he's not on social media, it's toxic, and that the only messages he's received in the wake of the Champions Cup defeat have been supportive messages.
Then on Monday, Jacques Nienaber was up for media and came armed with a can of petrol and a packet of matches. Again, it was right at the end of what had been a pretty normal quarter of an hour chat. Nienaber had gone into pretty good detail about what his role as a senior coach works and running the rugby program, what that involves. It was quite good, informative stuff. And then right at the end, somebody asked him if he would still be here next season. And I'm going to pick out a few quotes here. He said, if, like he said, I'm a devil, he being Rory O'Connor of the Irish Independent, who'd essentially a couple of years ago said that Leinster had done a deal with the devil to bring Nina Aber in, referencing obviously the style of play, which is very different to the way Leinster would have gone rather than Nina Aber actually being a devil.
He said, let me put it to you this way. Who fires you? Do you know who fires you? The public, the media, they fire you, not the CEO. He doesn't fire me, but you guys fire us, fire all coaches because the pressure builds up and builds up and the fans then build the pressure on them. And they just ask and say, listen, lads, I think we must part ways. So your question is, listen, am I going to be here? I hope so. Okay. Currently, I'm not so sure, to be honest. And then when he was pressed further as to why he felt his future was uncertain, he said, I don't think people value me here. They don't value me here. They don't.
Thoughts, Berners? I think I read the transcript and listened to the interview in full with Jack. I thought it was a different context than Leo's one. It was way more coherent. He had his facts. He argued his point. He explained pretty well, especially I thought was really interesting around his actual role as a senior coach. And I thought he explained that in real detail. And what unfortunately, what wasn't explained, I wasn't clear of was.
What sparked the media exchanges between Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber?
So basically what he said was he's given the times for the week for the SEC coach. That'd be quite standard in terms of how much time on fees. on a Monday how much time I feed on a on a Wednesday Thursday or depends what Smith to do Monday Tuesday Thursday if they go take Wednesday off and then he allocates the time you know so Rob McBride gets whatever half an hour to do set piece Tyler Blindale gets X amount of time for defence or attack and then obviously he does do defence and obviously Sean O'Brien would get time for contact skills breakdown etc but what he did say was which I thought was really interesting was he doesn't tell Rob McBride how to win the line of ball he doesn't tell Tyler Blindale how to attack
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the latest developments in Irish rugby?
0:08–3:41
2
What sparked the media exchanges between Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber?
3:41–9:45
3
Why does Jacques Nienaber feel undervalued in Irish rugby?
9:45–12:36
4
What are the implications of James Lowe's potential exit from Leinster?
12:36–18:15
5
How did Munster and Connacht perform in their URC quarter-finals?
18:15–23:03
6
Why is the return of Nigel Carolan to Irish rugby being discussed?
23:03–25:20
7
What are the main challenges facing Munster going forward?
25:20–29:57
8
How do the panelists view the future of Irish rugby and its teams?
29:57–1:08:18
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from RTÉ Rugby Podcast
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Leinster go back to back and who will replace Leo Cullen in 2027?
URC Grand Final special with Jake White and Bernard Jackman