HEINEKEN CUP:LEO CULLEN looks out from the Leinster Branch boardroom across the road from the Bective end of the Donnybrook stadium. It's his first time in these relatively plush surrounds and the Leinster captain recalls that his first training session with Leinster about 11 years before was on that over-used Bective back pitch. The sun bounces off the back of the new stand, though the newly-crowned European champions have long since outgrown it.
“It seems like a different lifetime ago now,” smiles Cullen. “The physiques of guys back then, when (Mike) Ruddock arrived first and the abuse he used to give the likes of Reggie (Corrigan) and Victor (Costello). Things have changed so dramatically. It’s just a different game now, but everyone did their bit to get the prize we all craved, supporters and players and support staff.”
Cullen was reflecting on his 11-year odyssey prior to making surprise visits to Temple Street and Crumlin Children’s hospitals yesterday with Girvan Dempsey, Shane Horgan, Bernard Jackman, Seán O’Brien and Jonathan Sexton. While retired former players such as Corrigan and Costello, who played 100-plus games have been rightly identified, the more contributors to the journey you mention, Cullen realises the more you then leave others out.
Jim Glennon was the first to bring him on board, and one of Glennon’s main skills was in broadening the base by identifying the likes of Trevor Brennan and Shane Horgan. With that was the sheer enthusiasm and traditional rugby values Ruddock brought when “working off a very different budget to what is in place at the moment. I remember when he showed us, over in the old rehab buildings at the Wesley end, clips from the Brive-Leicester Heineken Cup final in ’97, and the way Brive played and blew Leicester away was his vision for Leinster. We got there eventually.
“Ginger (Ken Ging) was a great guy, and he put so much time into it. It was his life while he was involved. I saw Carol (Ging’s wife) in the airport after the game and it’s great, because they’re living and breathing it every day. It’s the same with all the parents as well, and financially it must be a burden.”
His Cup debut was away to Stade Francais, can-can girls et al, and Cullen recalls watching from the bench as Leinster fell 42-7 down by half-time in 1998-99. “It was the year Ebbw Vale had 100 points put on them in Toulouse, and I remember that was Ruddock’s talk at half-time: ‘I’m not being part of a team that loses by 100 points.’ Ciarán Scally, Peter Smyth and myself were on the bench, we had played together at school, and when we came on we scored a few tries. I thought it was great, that we should have been playing all the time,” he says, smiling at his own naivety.
On the boardroom wall is a diamond-shaped photograph of Cullen, Denis Hickie and Corrigan applauding Leinster fans after their stunning 23-20 win away to Montferrand in 2002-03. “I remember it so vividly, it was actually only a pocket of fans up there. It was only really parents back then, and committee,” he says. “The support this year in ’Quins, from the whole stand at the end of the ground was phenomenal. It makes some difference.”
That Montferrand game was in Matt Williams’ time, and it was also to Williams’ credit that he brought Roly Meates in from the cold as scrum coach. “Roly is incredible. I think he’s like your honorary coach to Leinster for life now. You see him buzzing around the streets of Donnybrook with his pipe on a regular basis. Matt recognises the need to pass on the traditions of a place. He introduced that procedure where we had our jerseys presented by a former player.”
Cullen knew the late Brian McLoughlin, something of a Blackrock and Leinster legend, especially well. “A real gentleman of a man. He would have known my parents quite well and I was in the same class in school as one of his sons, Stephen. He was one of the guys (along with Paul McNaughton and Mick Dawson) who recruited Cheks (Michael Cheika), and a lot of credit has to go to Cheks as well for the work he’s done over the last four years.
“The place was in disarray when I left four years ago,” admits Cullen. “There was no stability in the place, but sport is cyclical and that’s going to happen.”
On returning, he was struck by the hugely increased interest and support, and the improved quality thanks to Cheika’s recruitment policy. Ask him what was the most important aspect Cheika brought and Cullen says: “Work ethic, really. The team has a better work ethic and I think teams quite often reflects their coaches, and no one works harder than he does.”
A lifeblood of Leinster’s ongoing development is the Magners League, “and I think the play-offs will help massively.”
He maintains there’s plenty of untapped potential, aside from the unique base the schools game provides, with which to push on from last Saturday, as good a day as he’s had in his career. “That and the schools final win over Newbridge also against Geordie (Murphy),” he says, smiling. “I scored a try too, I think it was about the second last try I ever scored.”
