There is a formative link between attack and defence that makes the most successful rugby teams dangerous in and out of possession. Leinster are living proof of this assertion, especially in recent Champions Cup matches.
Jacques Nienaber spoke effusively last week about Leinster’s brilliant attacking patterns in European victories over Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors. Last Saturday, this time in the United Rugby Championship, Ulster bore the brunt of that fluency in possession.
Leinster’s attack coach Tyler Bleyendaal, smiled when reminded of Nienaber’s words and then deflected neatly. “He’s just trying to divert attention. The defence is going well. It’s providing us with opportunities to attack off defensive sets, which is great. The lads are starting to enjoy the opportunities and see them on both sides of the ball which can only be great for us.”
The training ground is a hugely challenging environment when the two disparate sectors of the team square off against one another. Bleyendaal explained: “We have good quality to experiment with but also to try to execute and perform.
“It can also be challenging as well when you are starting to attack against your own style of defence. And maybe the challenge on a weekend is different and you need to adjust. Or sometimes I might have to get our defence to show me some different pictures. It works both ways.
“Sometimes you need blind hope [when it comes to strike moves]. It doesn’t come off against your own defence, but you still think it might work. Sometimes you just have to trust what you see. It might not be a smooth preparation throughout the week, but you can instil confidence in the lads around that aspect of keep giving it a go.”
Not everything works, plans are tweaked, others scrapped. Failure though doesn’t preclude growth. Bleyendaal agreed. “Definitely. I think it’s one of the more exciting [things when] you’ve come off the field, you’ve just had a challenging run, you look at the film [and then] you have challenging conversations.
“We’re not too worried about ‘this is a concrete plan, and we must stick to it’. If there are obvious things that need tweaking, we’re happy to do adjustments on short notice. Growth is all about failing and trying again and reapplying with all your learnings.”
Players adapting in real time during matches is encouraged, albeit that they are playing within a framework and shape. “You always need guidelines about what we’re trying to achieve but if I have something specific that I need done for a certain reason, I really push that.
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“You can loosen off in other areas where you can let the players play with their skill sets. [It’s about] just trying to get some consistency of what that looks like, so that the consistency and the skill sets can be trained well.
“Yeah, that’s a constant conversation between myself and Jacques. We might attack differently [in training] to an opposition, we want to test our defence out in a different way. The good thing about it is that it almost grows your game again because you execute a skill set you don’t always do and get a feel for it and understand it. It’s never wasted time.”
Bleyendaal is looking forward to the arrival of Rieko Ioane who will join Leinster next December, having previously coached against the All Black in Super Rugby. “He [Ioane] is a challenging player to coach against. He has a good skill set, a pretty smooth runner. He is also quite a big build as well, a big, tall, strong athlete. It is exciting to have him.
“Top quality players want to grow all the time. You must have different experiences to do that. I think Leinster is a great place for that and I think that is why we have seen [players of] the quality of Jordie and Rieko committing to come here.”
Leinster will wait until later in the week before deciding on the availability of Ryan Baird and RG Snyman in advance of Saturday’s URC match against the Scarlets at Parc y Scarlets (5.15pm).
The 25-year-old Baird last played when coming on as a replacement in a 22-minute cameo in the Champions Cup win over Harlequins. He subsequently picked up a calf injury which caused him to miss the quarter-final win over Glasgow Warriors in the same tournament.
Snyman sustained what the province has described as a dead leg in Leinster’s URC win over Ulster at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday night. Prop Paddy McCarthy and flanker Will Connors have recovered from injury and will be available for selection for the trip to west Wales.
There is no further update on secondrow James Ryan and wingers Jordan Larmour and Rob Russell. Ryan hasn’t played since the European game against Bath in January while Larmour has been an absentee from Leinster colours since a brief five-minute appearance as a replacement against Munster on December 27th.
