RTÉ Rugby Podcast
Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber go on the offensive, James Lowe's Leinster exit
03 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: 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.
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Chapter 2: 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
And the reality is that would fit in with a senior coach. So the head coach, that's their job.
The head coach's job is to make sure that how they defend the line-out is aligned to how they defend in general, how they win line-outs and scrums is aligned to how they want to attack, the balance between possession over territory, the way to kick in game and where you're going to kick and how often you're going to kick, etc.,
that's all someone needs to coordinate that right and i i felt from what i listened to it was that he doesn't oversee he doesn't coordinate at all in terms of how it all joins up that makes sense that i thought i was missing which that's the head coach's job so he coordinates the logistics of how it all plays out of training during the week that's certainly how i yeah how i read it that he coordinated the logistics of how it plays out but he isn't responsible for the overall game plan per se that's
that was my take on reading it which makes sense kind of how it looks on the pitch now it didn't look on the pitch like that on against the Lions now let's be honest the Lions were on holidays but I thought it was a brilliant performance by Leinster it was one of their most accurate energetic slick performances in a long time and it looked all joined up whatever which is
but when you're on the front foot as much as they were it can it can just flow a lot better and the really good game plans are able to be effective when you're not on the front foot or find ways of getting you on the front foot again and you only do that when you're up against a team who are as strong as you and the Lions obviously weren't
And also I thought his set-to with Rory was all logical, respectful. He made his points. And I don't argue with any of the points. The fans do get a coach sacked. The fans do. And I'm sure that the fact that whatever, they said 9,000 people were there on Saturday night, that's worrying. That's worrying for Leinster's financial accounts.
I'm sure the coaches, Leo, will be aware of that, that that's not a good sign. Also in terms of their popularity or people believing in the project, etc. So the fans do get sacked. He's 100% right there. Now he's saying that the media tell the fans and the fans then get sacked. I don't think that's true either.
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Chapter 3: Why does Jacques Nienaber feel undervalued in Irish rugby?
But I think, look, he's a phenomenal coach. He has the power to motivate. He's a winner. I'd like to hope that he gets another year and he feels valued. I'd like to hope he feels valued because I certainly think we were so lucky to have him here. It's all the debate, and I understand the debate around Leinster's way of playing and all that stuff.
But once you make that decision to sign him, you need to, I think, you need to double down and make everything based around that. And as I said, the Densler team that I saw post Six Nations last year for the Glasgow game, for the Harlequins game, it wasn't the same team that, it wasn't the same style of play that had been happening a little bit before that.
So his first pre-season post-Toulouse loss I thought September, October, November, December. I know people didn't please people on the eye, but that looked like a Jacques Ninobar, more, sorry, more, the type of rugby I would expect a Jacques Ninobar-influenced team to play. And probably since then, it's just been a little bit mixed.
And hence, it's not, hence the defence is not as effective, you know. But yeah, I thought it was a very strong argument. And I think we'd all love press conferences like that, where there's actually someone who's really, really strong opinion,
experienced coherent and consistent in his message and there's respect there and it can go back and forth I thought it was very interesting from a Leinster point of view do you want that out there no I don't think you do I think from above Leinster would be very concerned about how their communications has kind of got a bit wild the last three or four press conferences even post-match in Bordeaux but for us and for the fans it's something to talk about and we're not talking about the team now which is maybe that's the plan but I thought the team played really well on Saturday
Yeah, personally, I'll come to you in a second, Johnny. I don't really think it is a deflection tactic, either from Leo or from Jack Nienaber, because both of these happened right at the very, very, very tail end of a press conference where there'd been plenty of detail and good detail. So it sort of felt like things just boiled over at the very end.
And I would agree, being in the room on Monday afternoon, That was a very enjoyable and informative discussion. It's the sort of stuff you actually want to have, people fleshing things out right there and not really holding back, telling people what they think. maybe less so on Saturday, which we might get to. It was just a strange environment.
Johnny, to Bernard's point around how Leinster's style has changed under Nienaber and then slightly changed back again, do you think at the moment they're sort of caught between stations at the moment where they're trying to...
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of James Lowe's potential exit from Leinster?
they're trying to play some sort of a Jacqueline Aberball, but also at the same time, they're trying to stay true to their old values of playing really, really attacking rugby. And at the moment, they're kind of not doing either.
Yeah, I actually struggle to know what their identity is. Like, they're not really a kicking team or a transition team. They're probably a possession-based team, but... Well, they are, but they're not as possession-based as what you might, you know, easily identify Ireland as, you know. So...
it's hard sometimes like it's probably the it's the least amount of clarity we've had around what Leinster are going to do next like I'd say is it but you know Jack made a very interesting point around the defence like obviously it's a it's a high energy defence and what he was talking about is it's high energy for low periods of time because you want to try and get the ball back which I think they are you know you can see that identity alright
But even at that, I think even against Bordeaux, they gave away a try in the 22, didn't they? Like one phase off left-hand side scrum, which was shocking defence. Like I think, I can't remember who it was, Rico Ione, maybe really, really tight, really tight, got his read wrong. It was a simple 9-12 back to 10 and flash it across to the 15 who beat Ioane on an outline. But like,
it was really, really narrow. Like when UCD beat us in car con with that, we'd be scratching our heads being like, how have they done it? They shouldn't beat us with that. You know, like maybe we had a yellow card or something at the time. And so some of those things, I think they're still getting wrong. So like, if you're going to be that aggressive, you have to get it right.
And I wonder sometimes around things that Leo said earlier in the year, how much time do they have their lads on the pitch for? And it's, I don't know the answer to that. But it seems like when you think your way through it, coming out of Lyon's tour, back into internationals, I think they were available for one round, most of them, back into November series.
And then you get to Champions Cup, you have to get them back and then they're all being rested in and out of URC. At what time of the year do they get actual cohesion and a chance to put connections together in that defensive setup, especially when it's so aggressive? There are things that I think, you know, their coaches have been a bit fed up of.
And I think, you know, Leo's been quite outwardly as well in terms of maybe criticising the RFU or criticising players on player movement, which again, I think there's a massive amount of fatigue in Leinster and there's a lot of fatigue around their supporter base, you know, that they haven't gotten over the line and all of a sudden people are asking questions. So when...
So when Jack is talking about not feeling valued, I'd say the South African way of, you see the online discourse at the moment around South African people not thinking Jack is valued either and maybe doubling down on what's going on. I think he was blindly backed in South Africa and rightly so. They turned the whole thing around since 2017, didn't they?
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Chapter 5: How did Munster and Connacht perform in their URC quarter-finals?
The people who win things tell the story. And the others usually keep their mouth shut and wallow on it, analyze, review, and get better. This thing around, what I really find amazingly strange is the narrative from Saturday night that Leinster are getting lots of messages of goodwill that we haven't seen. I'm sure they are. I have no doubt people are sending messages of goodwill.
then why aren't we as the media reporting on that? Like, have you ever in any sport seen a team lose a final and lose quite heavily, one side enough in fairness, and then that the narrative from the media is so-and-so from Westmead sent Leo a message saying, great job. Like, that just doesn't happen. That's delusional that that would happen. That's not a sustainable industry.
You don't mention the mistakes that could have been made. You don't mention the fact that you've fallen short as a media narrative. And you just talk about the letters and the emails and the Instagram messages when apparently social media is toxic anyway. And I also think it lends to use social media, unfortunately.
I'd say the 9,000 people in the ground last week, I'd be shocked if at least 5,000 of them didn't use social media. I don't think they're all trolls. So the idea that everybody who questions anything is a troll, trolls are idiots and absolutely we can call them out and that is toxic. But a lot of people actually just use social media to give their opinion.
And as a fan, they probably feel that their opinion is in some way valued. That's how I see it. Maybe I'm completely wrong.
No, I'd 100% agree. I actually had that written down and you've led us nicely to it. There's a few things that I just found so strange about Leo Cullen's comments on Saturday evening. For a start, his reaction to the question, as I said, a pretty innocuous question just about How have you managed dealing with the pressure over the last couple of weeks on a personal level?
You'd been asked considerably tougher questions than that a few days earlier on Thursday afternoon. You'd been asked a couple of questions about does he believe he's the man to actually deliver a fifth Champions Cup title to Leinster? Why does he believe that? What gives him confidence he's the man to do that? And he answered all of those questions pretty well.
People might agree or disagree with the answers, but he gave confident responses to it. He gave emphatic responses, defiant responses about his own future. So, you can't just turn around a couple of days later and say, well, I'm unaware of any pressure whatsoever. Like he's been answering questions about that quite well for a couple of days and tougher questions about it.
And as you said, on the social media side of things, dismissing any sort of criticism on social media as irrelevant is burying your head in the sand a little bit. Because as you said, there's a big difference between social media criticism and social media abuse. And I think the vast majority of people can sit down and
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Chapter 6: Why is the return of Nigel Carolan to Irish rugby being discussed?
That's not what people are there for. People are there to win.
Yeah, I just think, just building on Bernard's point, it's been a very strange year for Leinster, I think, in the background in terms of the RFU and the resourcing and massive change that most people probably won't understand in terms of budgeting. And that ties into the James Law conversation, maybe, that they are having to front up now up to 30% of a lot of contracts.
It's a lot of money that all of a sudden there's a pressure on the job that Leo probably didn't sign up for. Like in the last... Well, this last year, he's after copping a lot of flack for...
maybe performances earlier in the year and that's post-Lyons back into international not having those players I think there was a bit of frustration around that and then he's dealing with the budgetary changes and the differences going forward that's something that he's had to deal with that he didn't have to deal with before and now all of a sudden he's got better players who are looking to move on to care for all these little world never looked to move before so I think there's a lot more going on behind the scenes which has kind of brought this to a bit of a boiling point
and then having to defend his coaches and defend their game plan and you know any one of those things in isolation is probably fine but the whole lot of it coming together I think has just made it a very very strange year for Leinster being you know as Bernard said I don't like them comparing themselves to the rest of the Irish provinces because
they're by far and away more successful and more set up, as Bernard said as well, to be successful. But you can't be looking over your shoulder and they never have. So comparing themselves to people who aren't winning is not the Leinster that we're used to. So I think there's been a lot going on in terms of Leo's job, how it's changed.
Probably having a... Well, I'm not sure he didn't have dominant coaches in the past, but there's no doubt... Jack is very dominant in terms of the passion he has over his beliefs. And I think when you're dealing with someone like that, you're going to have to be all over everything you say or every narrative that you put out there. And that's one thing that I wrote.
I don't want to be... I have no interest in being on top of a coach and looking for the end of their contract and all that. But the big thing I would question, well, first of all is... You know, he's always been... I've actually respected the fact that no matter what happened, what result, he gets very objective, talks about the game, looks like it doesn't really get to him.
And I always found that strange because it was a real positive for Oil. And after Oil, I was saying, will he ever show some...
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Chapter 7: What are the main challenges facing Munster going forward?
some kind of personality in terms of hating losing like i don't like him kind of explaining away a lot sometimes and all of a sudden he's not explaining it away he's biting back and i'm like that's you know you use the word bernard inconsistent or it's not consistent i i find that very strange as well like if you look at some coaches in the past and they've had a right cut off the media but they might do it every three weeks you know you're kind of
you're going in to expect it but i think the way it's happened now it did probably start as a bit of a stir and try and get people back on their site i don't think it's worked and now they're doubling down and and it probably stinks of a bit more desperation or a lack of control at this stage because if they had won i think they'd have said we started off because we created a narrative and the narrative worked i don't think the narrative has worked and now they're kind of rudderless in terms of how to communicate um i like the
I like the charisma, I like the personality, but I don't think it's been consistent and I don't think he's that kind of person to come out into the media and challenge every week. I think he's been really good at the objective stuff, but the subjective hasn't, I don't think it's hit well. And my question was, how is he treating the players? What's the narrative?
How is he getting them back on site? How is the buy-in? And like I said earlier, Jack and Razzy have South African players, coaches, staff, fans, everyone in the palm of their hand. I'm not sure Leinster is in the palm of anyone's hand at the moment and that's a problem.
Yeah, good point, Johnny. And also, like, to be fair to Leo, it's a long stint. Like, there is fatigue of having to deal, do press conferences. Like, as you say, most of them have been mundane for nine years. For a long, long time. the final losses must be building up on him. And he is feeling the pressure and it's horrific.
And that's why they're paying big money and that's why so few people can do it. And he's done it for a long time. It's just now he probably needs some people around him. Unless this is a tactic to just say less, you know, say less. Don't pick fights that you don't need to win. Or if you are going to pick a fight, be really clear on your reasoning, explain it well, and then get out of town.
You know what I mean? Not to be... The longer the press conference was on the other night, the worse it was getting, I felt, for Leo's credibility and standing.
Yeah, it just got awkward. Now, before it actually did get awkward, he did... I do obviously want to bring this up. He did address your criticism of having Sam Prendergast and Fintan gone up in the coaches box for the final in Bilbao. He didn't specifically mention you by name in it, but he mentioned the criticism of it, which as far as I understand, you were the only person who did mention it.
Yes.
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Chapter 8: How do the panelists view the future of Irish rugby and its teams?
And I didn't ask them, I didn't set my narrative and say, do you agree with me? I said, what do you think it is? Is this a good thing? And not one said that it was worth the risk. If it was even only a small discussion. And this isn't against Sam or Fintan, but the reality is what's said there gets repeated somewhere.
Half the stuff we know about has come from the dressing room, from someone talking about it. So players do share things. And my argument was that if... I said last week, if they need to make a change, that that can be argued and discussed there and then without any fear. One of the coaches actually said to me, they'd seen it themselves and thought that was bizarre.
And they presumed that they were there because there was no seats in the crowd for them. That you wouldn't do this. An overflow section. I know Leo's argument is that... And Leinster believe that in two or three years' time, the whole world are going to be doing this. Leinster are ahead of the curve, which may be the case.
But I'm saying I'd rather be really sure it was the way forward than talk about development. And Sam Prendergast is an Irish international. He's not a TY student. I actually say for him, it's uncomfortable to be in the box that day. I'm only making my own perception here. And I actually know that players who played in that Leinster match weren't sure about it either.
So again, why would you risk it? So the beggar's belief, I think, if you're really... Unless you're... If you're not...
what beggars belief to me is is that you wouldn't be open to looking at the things you did and question even deeper was it the right thing you know so like the warm up I didn't say this last week but a lot of people in the ground and I've said to me post were there like Bordeaux cut the warm up in half because of the heat Leinster were out early in late that's a decision you make absolutely no problem I understand it but again
When you don't perform to the level you're capable of, that has to be deliberated on and you're going to get challenged on that or the question's going to be asked. Now, obviously, they should be doing it internally anyway. I'm sure they are. And then, like, the other stuff, like, why did set-piece fail again in a big game? Why did the defence fail? Why did the attack fail?
These are all things that...
there's no hidden motivation like I'm not a troll here like I love Leinster played for Leinster now I'm a pundit so I can't I gotta call it out it's the easy thing for me is to go in and go look bounce the ball small margins like that's easy any pundit can do that and that's fine but when you become a pundit not an ex-player you have to decide whether you're going to be a cheerleader
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