Let’s be honest. Sale were not expected to journey this deep into the Champions Cup playoffs. The fact they have reached the quarter-finals is a great credit to the team. Their success means they are not listening to any opinions outside of their tight-knit unit. The Sale players believe in themselves and have nothing to lose.
The bookies are giving Sale close to no chance of pulling off one of the biggest upsets in Champions Cup history. However, when you publicly denigrate highly-competitive rugby players, whose egos outsize their biceps, by telling the world they are not up to the challenge in Dublin, you will get a reaction.
All of which makes Sale a dangerous opponent and coaches like me very nervous.
Leinster must deal with the emotional energy Sale will bring to their opening 20 minutes when the visitors will attempt to eliminate the influence of the home crowd by applying scoreboard pressure that can sow doubt inside Leinster’s minds.
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If Sale can rack up a few early tries, then the D4 boys will have a game on their hands. However, the enormity of the task facing Sale to achieve this can be seen in some very simple but telling stats.
In a pool match, Sale were trounced by Toulouse 77-7. There is nothing lucky about all those 7s for Sale. It was an utter humiliation and not just on the scoreboard. Regrettably, in away pool stage games of the Champions Cup, many English clubs, including Sale, now run up the white flag and surrender these matches by selecting a second XV.
With only a 50 per cent winning ratio in the pool stages and a points differential of -38, it is a fact that under the old six game pool system, Sale would not have qualified for a quarter-final.
[ Sale suffer triple blow ahead of Champions Cup trip to face LeinsterOpens in new window ]
While clubs that select weakened teams for away matches deserve the beltings they get, from a personal perspective, as someone who deeply enjoyed and respected the significant challenges of the old Heineken Cup, I hope Leinster smash Sale. Not because I am pro Leinster, but because the actions of clubs like Sale show they do not care about their opponents’ finances, the away supporters or the integrity of the Champions Cup.
There is an old saying in rugby that if you disrespect your opponent, you are inviting disappointment into your life. I hope after full time at the Aviva, the away dressingroom is filled with deep and bitter disappointment. Clubs, like Sale, that game the system cannot be allowed to benefit from their cynical actions.
Apart from morality, decency and respect for the game, there are several sound and factual reasons why Leinster are raging favourites.
They are at home and have a team oozing with hugely-talented players who are being guided around the park by an outhalf who has been revived from rugby’s mortuary in a comeback bigger than Lazarus. Once dumped and almost forgotten, Harry Byrne has been smart, calculated and constructive.
Leinster also have one other great quality they have lacked in past years. Tommy O’Brien is the first Leinster player since Denis Hickie with simply outrageous speed that opposition teams cannot contain. He is now doing for Leinster what Louis Bielle-Biarrey has been doing for Bordeaux and France.
Outside of Ireland, Leinster are held in almost mythical status in the rugby world. Their year-on-year consistency in reaching the playoffs with a majority of players who are born, raised and developed within the province is seen by the rest of the rugby world as extraordinary.
When we consider the budgets and playing populations, no Irish province should be able to mix it with the best from England and France. Yet year after year, Leinster are close to the top. Despite all of this unquestionable success, the non-Leinster supporters inside Ireland take great small-minded joy when Leinster are defeated in a Champions Cup or a URC playoff.
The ignorant still argue that in winning last season’s URC Final and reaching the semi-finals of the Champions Cup, Leinster somehow failed. If Sale were to achieve the equivalent, their players would be popping the Champagne, as they would have triggered the bonus payments in their contract.
Added to all this is the fact that one of Leinster’s greatest captains, who is also locally born and bred, has been the club’s long-serving Head Coach, overseeing this remarkable dynasty. Once again, the rugby world outside of Ireland shake their heads in disbelief at the quality of the local talent.
Because Leo Cullen shuns the media limelight and is happy to give the credit to his players, within Ireland, he is massively undervalued and underrated.
Leo Cullen is proof indigenous Irish coaches can be successful and are the answer for Ireland’s rugby future. As Richie Murphy, another Leinster product, continues to prove at Ulster, all that Ireland’s indigenous coaches require is opportunity.
The Champions Cup quarter-finals are, without doubt, the best weekend of club rugby in the world.
The twist in the tale of this weekend is Leinster’s future may well be determined at the Stade Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux, where the home team will take on the might of Toulouse.
Leinster hearts will be beating fast for Bordeaux, because, like me, they believe Leinster can defeat them if they meet in the future. If Toulouse prevail, which I predict they will, then they will pose a real and perhaps insurmountable problem for Leinster if they meet down the track.
For the moment, Leinster are on course to make another Champions Cup semi-final. An achievement that will be the envy of every rugby supporter across the planet. Except those in Ireland.
