Leinster assistant coach Sean O’Brien insists there have been lessons learnt by the squad after the league leaders were taken apart by the Bulls in a 62-7 defeat – their biggest loss in history.
Granted it was a younger and weakened Leinster team, but the defeat ended their 17-game unbeaten streak in the United Rugby Championship.
Their superior position on the table afforded the Irish giants the luxury of leaving their superstars in Ireland to prepare for a big semi-final in the Champions Cup against Toulouse next weekend.
Learn from the loss
O’Brien believes Leinster made two main errors – being too passive on defence and not holding onto the ball.
“Defensively is the first one – you have to go and take space away from the likes of the Bulls and we didn’t do that enough,” he said.
“We kind of sat on the gainline and let them undo us. They have big bodies and are big physical players and when they win that advantage line, they are able to play their game.
“Another one is looking after the ball when we do have it – not coughing up possession. We want to move teams around and we were not able to do that against the Bulls.”
Bulls forced Leinster errors
The assistant coach admitted the ways the Bulls dominated the game and imposed themselves on Leinster forced them into uncharacteristic errors.
“The account was high out there from us, and it is not what we are about, but it was definitely the way the Bulls played and imposed themselves on us which forced us into a lot of mistakes. When we had the ball, we just didn’t keep it and it’s hard to impose your gameplan on another when you keep coughing it up and making a lot of errors,” he said.
O’Brien took a moment to acknowledge the two debutants from the weekend, Conor O’Tighearnaigh and Liam Molony, who amongst other young players will have grown from the South African tour.
“There are few bumps and bruises and we will access that over the next 24 hours. We’ve had two new caps which is on the positive side of it, in Conor O’Tighearnaigh and Liam Molony. We can kick them into gear a little over the next few weeks and the experience we had over the last two weeks will be good for those younger guys,” he added.
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