mobanmarketStuart Lancaster expects Leicester Tigers to be a difficult challenge for Leinster in the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup.
Leinster marched into the next round of the tournament with a 30-15 win over rivals Ulster to continue their remarkable unbeaten run in all competitions this season.
The side is loaded with Irish internationals, and a whopping 14 stars from last weekend’s matchday squad won the Grand Slam this year.
The Dublin men face Leicester Tigers this weekend, who are starting to find some consistent form under interim head coach Richard Wigglesworth.
Tight-knit group
The former scrum-half is aware of the challenge ahead against a group of players who have spent a lot of time together.
“This is a group that have spent almost their entire lives, let alone professional careers, playing together through the Irish system, from school to Leinster and then even for Ireland, where they dominate that squad,” Wigglesworth told Leicester Tigers’ official website.
“Now, here we are, taking on a side who have been in six Champions Cup finals in the past decade and won four of them. Leinster are a European powerhouse.”
However, Lancaster believes despite the praise from Wigglesworth; he will be firing up his men and hoping to down Leinster this weekend.
“Richard Wigglesworth might say that publicly, I’m 100% certain he won’t be saying that privately – there’s no way he’ll be saying that internally in Leicester; I know him too well,” said Lancaster.
“So, no, they’ll be absolutely rolling up their sleeves, thinking, ‘Why can’t we beat them?’.
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“They’ve beaten Saracens in a Premiership final, they’ve beaten Edinburgh – who are strong – pretty comfortably. They had good wins in Europe this year and last year.
“They’ll be relishing this opportunity. Putting ourselves under pressure, we need to make sure we deliver.
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past; you’ve got to build your mentality and accuracy from the minute you walk in the door on Monday to the minute you deliver on Friday night.
“This week is no different – and, in fact, more so because it’s knockout rugby and it’s the quarter-finals.”
Quality of coaching
The senior coach also rubbished the talks that Leinster benefits from demographics and insists having 14 Test stars is centred around the quality of the academy and coaching.
“People talk a lot about Leinster having 14 international players, but they’ve been developed at Leinster – it’s not like we’ve bought them in from Ireland,” he said.
“Having achieved the Grand Slam, to play at home in front of 52,000 at the weekend – hopefully, it’s as close to that as we can get on Friday night, it’s a big motivation for the players.
“I don’t get wrapped up in the demographics. The thing that concerns me the most is making sure we’ve got an unbelievable development system, an unbelievable connection between the development programme and the academy and the senior team – and making sure the senior team is coached as well as they can be.
“When push comes to shove, I still think quality coaching trumps everything.
“We’re very lucky that we’ve got a great group of diverse coaches, and Leo (Cullen) marshals the whole thing unbelievably well.
“We’ve worked hard to develop the players, and they have all improved.”