'The belief was always there that we could win'

REACTION: "IT WASN'T pretty at times," says Leo Cullen. An unsung hero? It was a big call for Leinster to give Cullen captaincy from Brian O'Driscoll. But the Wicklow man's understated presence in the team has helped bring this Donnybrook side to a place of less fluctuation, greater stability.

His secondrow work, his organisational ability and his talent to be relentlessly level-headed seems just what Leinster required. Sometimes teams have to come down from one place in order to go forward and higher from a lower setting. The anomaly of Leinster winning ugly before the last few months would have been an amusing point of debate for the queues of team detractors.

Where did it all go right this time? “To hang in, show a bit of belief,” says Cullen. “The periods when we were down to 14 men were pretty costly. They came strong at us, so I think it was just belief and that period when we went seven points down to just hang in there. That was a pretty vital period of the game.

“The belief was always there that we could win the game but the lads just came tough. We knew it was going to be a massive physical battle. Leicester have some very powerful runners and our guys just hung in there.”

Behind the euphoria and celebrations there was a strong sense that this is the beginning of another chapter. That Leinster has discovered something that can be used to thrust on, seems not very far from people’s minds.

“We’ve a lot of young players in our squad and we want to have that level of consistency that they’re going to perform on an annual basis,” added Cullen. “Leicester are a team that have that and have had that for a number of years and it is something that we’ll be striving for. Getting that die-hard support is so essential for an organisation to grow. The provincial thing is still relatively new compared to the club structure in England. But our support has been great all year.”

Rocky Elsom may have come to Leinster for the money as much as the cultural immersion but few visitors have delivered so spectacularly. The Australians are desperate to have him back and again the evidence was clear to see why. But even the backrow line-breaker had doubts.

“Well, you want to have days like these,” says the Australian. “There were times during the year when we didn’t play as well as we’d have liked and it looked like long odds to make it through to the final. We got ourselves back on track. I think for the last three games there was just that clarity about what we wanted to do. It was left in our hands a bit, something that we enjoy.”

Coach Michael Cheika sat back a little. Sure he did the laps, he smiled, he fist pumped and he signed shirts but the Australian, despite his snappy dressing, is never one to thrust himself forward that much. What changed? “I think putting stability in place and a bit of structure and that’s no guarantee for results either,” he says. “Run the organisation as best as I could and build some culture. That’s what I’m there to do.

“One thing I found was that it’s a group of players that were eager and hungry to be successful. They’ve gone about learning how to be that way. Yeah, Rocky has added to our culture as well. Culture is not just something you make up. It’s a combination of the players that are in it. They make it. He’s added a new dimension to that.”

“We’ve learned a lot from our defeats,” said Bernard Jackman. “Maybe it took us longer than other teams. To get that bit of bitterness and we’ve had that this year. We targeted the Heineken Cup. We called them Test weeks and tried to prepare exactly the way you would if you were playing for Ireland. Even change of venue. We always train in the RDS the week of the Heineken Cup. Just to mentally stimulate you.”

Those who tagged Leinster with insulting tags have been forced to change their tune. Columnists who get paid to be controversial will have to find another dog to kick around.

“Hopefully we have buried some rumours and some bullshit to be honest,” continued Jackman, who has not trained this year because of a catalogue of injures.

“Listen, I wouldn’t like to have missed that one. Get it (the injury) right now and hopefully have a good season next year.”