Jacques Nienaber gives pessimistic Leinster verdict despite return of raft of internationals
RG Snyman now in line for his Leinster Rugby debut as new captain Caelan Doris and Tadhg Furlong among a host of top stars ready to start the URC season
Jacques Nienaber predicts another "clunky" Leinster performance this week despite the Blues flooding the team with Ireland stars - and putting a World Cup winner on the bench.
Nienaber, the province's defence coach, is optimistic that another World Cup winner in RG Snyman can make his Leinster debut in Treviso on Saturday after picking up a foot injury while on Springboks duty.
Leo Cullen had hoped to have Snyman available for last Friday night's victory over Dragons at the Aviva Stadium, but the club medics decided the big Springbok needed more time - despite taking part in most of the training sessions.
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The 29-year-old lock, who coincidentally suffered the first of two ACLs while with Munster on his debut against Leinster in August 2020. His first Leinster start could even come against Munster next week at Croke Park.
Snyman has trained fully this week so far. "Hopefully the medics give us the all clear," said Nienaber. "He needs to fulfil our needs in terms of quality of training and what he brings in the training and then he needs to fulfil their needs in terms of the fact that he doesn’t get symptoms. Then we can pick him."
Joe McCarthy and Josh van der Flier made their first appearances last week since Ireland's Test win to end last season in Durban.
Other big names poised to make their season bows include new skipper Caelan Doris - who was helping out in the coaches box on Friday, and may the first of a number of Leinster players to do so - plus Tadhg Furlong, Andrew Porter, Ciarán Frawley, Robbie Henshaw, Rónan Kelleher and Ryan Baird.
Leinster have 10 points from a possible 10 to find themselves in a familiar position at the URC summit but dig beneath the stats and Leo Cullen's side were in a tough battle in Edinburgh before improving after a poor first half at home to Dragons.
“Yeah, clunky in the first half (against Dragons), errors in the first half, but they sorted that out," said Nienaber. "Same in the first game versus Edinburgh, clunky in the first half and then just proceeded to get some momentum. It is going to look like that.
“This weekend, if we do get the majority of the internationals back, it will also be clunky. They haven’t played rugby for eight weeks. They won’t come in and play at the same level as against South Africa in Durban.
“If that performance from Frawls in South Africa was an eight or nine out of 10 performance then there's a good possibility that they will rock up with a six out of 10 performance here and we spoke about that as coaches this morning. That's the reality. You just have to go through that.”
Now fully "in the flow" at Leinster after coming on board after last year's World Cup final, Nienaber addressed the perception some Leinster fans have that the Blues' attack suffered due to the introduction of his blitz defence system last term.
“There will always be perceptions and narratives, as long as we stay in our reality." he said. "Did the attack suffer at the hands of the defence? I’m not sure. The reality is, did we score less points than the last year? I honestly don’t know.
"I think in Europe we conceded the least tries. So did that help or not? I think in Europe we scored the second or third most tries. So it's difficult to say, but I don’t share that view. You're embedding a new system so you obviously take more time because you only have so many minutes in a week.
"You have to take it from the attack so you probably take some time from the attack. But did the attack suffer because of it? I’m not sure.”
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