Leinster coach Jacques Nienaber insists that their victory over La Rochelle must not distract from the issues they still need to correct in their game.
The Irish province have won every game so far this season, with the latest a narrow 16-14 triumph over the French outfit in the Investec Champions Cup.
Once again, their defence was absolutely superb as only a piece of Dillyn Leyds brilliance broke through their rearguard.
Attacking problems
In contrast, Leinster are still attempting to find the attacking verve they had under Stuart Lancaster with the fluency missing from some of their performances over the past 12 months.
“I think the key thing for us as coaches and as players, you can’t just let the happiness of the win almost Polyfilla over the cracks because listen, there are still a lot of things we have to work on,” Nienaber told reporters.
“It was a good performance in certain aspects of the game, but there’s still a lot of things we will have to improve if we want to go and continue deep into this competition.”
There is no doubt that Nienaber’s influence has moved Leinster in a slightly different direction having introduced a Springboks-like blitz and a more conservative game plan with ball in hand.
The two-time Rugby World Cup believes that it is a problem with getting the “balance” right and hopes that they can achieve that as the season goes on.
“As a team, like all teams, you want to strive to get balance within your game,” he said.
“And when I’m talking about balance I’m talking about balance between your attacking game, balance between your defensive game and balance in your kicking game. That almost ties the two together, you know, your transition game.
“So, you want balance in those three departments and, obviously set-piece, nobody can play without set-piece. Set-piece for me is almost a chapter on its own. It is probably the most important part.
“Sometimes you just have to go and win the game ugly. I don’t think we always get our balance right currently and it is something that we work on weekly.”
Case for the defence
One area which has been consistently excellent from the Irish province has been the defence, but Nienaber played down his own role in their rearguard showing this season.
“My experience coaching against Leinster when I was at Munster and also coaching against a lot of the Leinster players when they played for Ireland. I’ve coached against them twice at international level. A lot of them were playing for Ireland and they were pretty good defensively back in the day then,” he said.
“When you analyse them and try and look for space and opportunities to get through them, they were pretty tough to get through. So it’s not like there was ever glaring opportunities in the past.
“You had to work to get space and to create space against Leinster. When I was with Munster, we didn’t come close to beating them in the Aviva, the two times we played them here.
“I would love to say that, ‘listen, I’ve got them defending better’, but they were always good at it. I just think I’m fortunate to work with players that are good at defending.”
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/jacques-nienaber-issues-balance-warning-to-leinster-after-la-rochelle-win-exposes-attacking-issues
