Clock ticking on Leinster's silverware hunt but Nienaber says they can avoid Man City-type freefall
Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber talks about where the Blues are on the high performance clock and how they can stay at the top level of the club game for years to come
Jacques Nienaber says the clock is always ticking on Leinster's stay at the top level.
But the Blues' senior coach insists that the changes he has brought to the province can make Leinster avoid the sort of freefall that Man City are experiencing.
City's shocking run of defeats in the Premier League and in Europe has led to claims that Pep Guardiola's empire is falling.
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Speaking three days after Leinster's underwhelming Champions Cup victory over Clermont, two-time World Cup winner Nienaber acknowledged Leo Cullen's call for the coaching team to re-examine how they are preparing the team.
"Coaches can always do more," said the two-time World Cup winner with South Africa. “As a leadership, when you don’t get a performance like that, you must always start with yourself. That’s how my brain works - I can’t talk for Leo and I can’t talk for the other coaches."
But Nienaber added: "You must always cherish victories because there will come a time when you don't get them and then you kind of wish that you celebrated them more.
"If you look at Man City, things can change in a heartbeat so you must always cherish victories because they're not a given in pro sport.
"The disappointment is that if we look at our performance measured against the standard that we set ourselves, I don't think that was on par."
He mentions the performance clock that measures the rise and fall of high performance teams, with 12 o'clock being the optimum and six o'clock being at rock bottom.
The goal, Nienaber explains, is to avoid slipping beyond 10 or 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock on the performance clock. And he insists that there are four key elements to Leinster avoiding going into freefall and to lift trophies again after three barren seasons.
Those elements are leadership, avoiding complacency, avoiding stubbornness and adding creativity. Certainly, Leinster have evolved their game under Nienaber with the introduction of the blitz defence. "You must always be mindful of not getting into the fall," he warned.
"12 o’clock is where you win trophies and 11 o’clock you’re in finals and you’re there and thereabouts," he said. "I can only talk about last season but we're there or thereabouts, we're playing in finals, in knockout games, trying to fight on two fronts - where, probably, it will definitely be easier if we decide to prefer one competition above another one.
"It’s a little bit easier then because you get natural breaks. If you fight on two fronts you have to keep going, going, going. But we are there or thereabouts."
Nienaber expanded: "So it's, 'if this is the way we do it at Leinster, this is the way we’ve always done it, this is the way we did it in conjunction with Ireland and we’ve been successful like this in the last six years, so there's no need to change because you're one of the top clubs'.
"But you're the hare that they chase - you've got the crosshairs on your back. If you don’t evolve in your leadership and playing style, your plans and creativity, teams are always going to catch up to you."
For example, Nienaber says that Leinster have adopted the new lineout rules that are coming into place in the new year - and puts their set-piece problems against Clermont down to that.
"How do you stay at the top? You have to be creative, you have to evolve. You have to try new things," he stated. "And sometimes it comes at a risk, like it did this weekend, and thankfully for us we still got the win. But we're still disappointed in our performance."
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