Of all the top clubs in European rugby, none have undergone a bigger face-lift than perennial URC leaders and EPCR Champions Cup contenders Leinster over the last three years.
At the end of the 2022-2023 season, one coaching mastermind on attack, Stuart Lancaster, was replaced South Africa’s world cup-winning defensive Svengali Jacques Nienaber.
It was a seismic shift in tactical approach for a province already at the pinnacle of the club game up north, and it did not come easily to players used to running Lancaster’s well-honed, innovative shapes on offence. The coaching volte-face required many a sleek greyhound to turn rabid, and find their inner junkyard dog.
Almost one year to the day around Christmas, Ireland hooker-turned pundit Bernard Jackman was lamenting the broken spokes and spindles in the South African revolution. Where defenders tended to pull out of the tackle and reload quickly into line under the Cumbrian, they were asked to first slow the ball down, then pull the opposition breakdown apart under the auspices of the man from the Free State:
“Ireland’s discipline has dropped off a little bit and some of that is probably down to how Leinster players are playing for Leinster where it doesn’t seem to be a ‘no-no’ to give away penalties at the breakdown, to give away offside penalties, etc.
They back themselves to get in that situation and the [breakdowns] they don’t get blown for, they would be big wins for them.”
https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/series/20932-20932-the-rugby-podcast/
To say that Leinster are playing closer to the line under Nienaber would be an understatement, but the festive interstate derby against Munster showed just how far they have travelled in their efforts to make hay in the grey areas of the tackle zone without falling foul of the officiating crew. Now, the men in blue defend on the edge without falling off the cliff of refereeing tolerance so often.
At Thomond Park, Munster built 50 more rucks than the Dubliners and carried the ball into contact on 54 occasions more than their opponents. But the most telling stat of all was the eight Munster entries inside the 22 which yielded eight points at a meagre average of one point per visit to the red zone.
Nowhere is Leinster’s new attitude more visible and significant than in their red zone defence, and the key to that defence is their ability to manipulate the grey area at the breakdown to their advantage.
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) January 2, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) January 2, 2026
The entire sequence only features three rucks in total, but Leinster’s actions after the first cleanout has ‘won’ the ball for the men in red is the most influential factor at all of them.
In the first part of the sequence, Leinster number seven Josh Van Der Flier is willing to risk a penalty sanction for playing the Munster scrum-half at the base of the ruck after the initial cleanout has spent itself:
The open-side’s action forces a third Munster cleanout support to commit to the re-ruck and the risk is rewarded. In Leinster’s older defensive pattern, he would probably be reloading into line rather than attacking the ball.
In the second part, Leinster’s international second row Joe McCarthy jumps offside and straight into the path of a pick & go, or distribution of the ball out to Munster #10 Jack Crowley out on the left-hand side:
The hands are in the air in a plea of innocence but in practice, it means that the attacking side can only probe to one side of the field, and it just happens to be the side that is better defended by the men in blue.
Leinster spent the better part of four minutes successfully defending their own goal-line in between the 62nd and 66th minutes of the second half, and the next slice of action illustrates yet another way of attacking the ruck after the cleanout has won the ball:
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) January 2, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) January 2, 2026
In the first clip, there is a dominant carry by Munster #16 and a sweeping cleanout which wipes out the first defender out completely, but it does not stop Ireland and British & Irish Lions stalwart Tadhg Furlong from contesting the ball after the ruck has been won:
The Leinster tight-head is probably dancing on a refereeing volcano, skirting around the side and forcing the commitment of a third and fourth man at the re-ruck by Munster, but he only pulls out when the damage has been done, and the attack to one side of the field [the Munster left] on the next play has effectively been ruled out.
A second ‘reach-over’ attempt by Furlong’s prop partner Paddy McCarthy effectively sealed the defensive deal a couple of rucks later:
The ruck has collapsed and McCarthy knows the ref will not allow him to pilfer the ball, but that is not the point. With five men of Munster already still on the deck against only two from Leinster, the arithmetic is working out in the defence’s favour, and the added prevention of any quick ball ensures that is the way the situation will remain.
The recent Christmas derby between Munster and Leinster featured a number of intriguing sub-plots, amongst which the contest between a New Zealand attack coached by ex-Chiefs supremo Clayton McMillan, and a South African defence mentored by Jacques Nienaber was a chapter highlight.
Nienaber’s charges won that battle hands-down, giving up a niggardly total of only eight points away from home.
<h2Summary
This the new Leinster and given their influence on national selection it also means a new Ireland. Maybe not the version which stepped over the red line against the Springboks in November, but v 2.0, treading the officiating high wire with the assurance of a Philippe Petit between the twin towers. Like Petit’s famous walk on the thin air over New York, much of it is unauthorized but very little of it is sanctioned.
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