Former Springbok coach Nienaber dodges bullets from unhappy Leinster fans

For Leinster fans, there were two burning questions after their team lost 37-34 to Northampton in the Champions Cup at the weekend, and to answer them, former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber was under the blowtorch.

Nienaber, the Leinster defence coach, did press conference duty ahead of his team’s United Rugby Championship match this week against Zebre, and was primarily asked why the defence was poor and why Leinster did not take a shot at goal at the death to force the match into extra- time.

Regarding the defence, Nienaber has gone from hero to zero in Dublin after Leinster kept lethal attacking sides in Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors tryless in the previous rounds, only to leak five tries against Northampton. Nienaber feels it is not his system that failed, but the application of it.

“If you look at the squad's potential defensively and then look at the performance, we didn’t deliver on that potential,” he told the Irish Examiner. “What is our potential in defence? It’s a lot better than that.”

Nienaber was asked whether his players got their tackling tactically, technically or mentally wrong. He said it was all of the above.

“That’s the beauty of rugby. It is seldom one thing. You can’t go it’s just mental, or just physical.”

In the last few minutes of the game, Leinster were awarded two penalties in the Northampton 22, but went (unsuccessfully) for maul tries instead of locking up the game at 37-37.

“Nothing I say will justify our decisions because the outcome didn’t go our way,” Nienaber said.

“Knockouts are going to be won in the last 10 minutes. It is going to be a one-score game. You try and get over the line, but is there a magic formula, a magic mental conversation you have with the team beforehand to get them to win? No, there is not, unfortunately.”

Nienaber was on the right side of decisions to go for posts at the 2023 World Cup when Handre Pollard's penalties were crucial in earning the Boks one-point victories over France, England and New Zealand.

Nienaber was asked if they went the goal-kicking route later in the tournament because of the 8-13 pool defeat to Ireland.

"In the game against Ireland, we did take the kicks, but Manie (Libbok) missed them.

"In the quarter-final against France, Cheslin Kolbe charged down a conversion from (Thomas) Ramos, and we had scored four tries with Manie, so yes, we did kick a penalty at the back end of the game, but that got us through to that last 10 minutes. We had to score four tries to get there because France scored four tries.

"The last try that we scored was where we had a penalty under the posts, and we did a quick tap move where Eben Etzebeth scored and put us in a position from where Handre could take the kick that got us home.

"In the England game, we were down and out, and we went to the corner, and RG (Snyman) scored a maul try to get us back into the game.”

Nienaber added that last week’s game had a different context because of the scenario of extra- time.

“If we took the three points, we still would have needed to win the game, so does that make sense because it would only have put us into extra time?

"But let's say we don't win the game, people will say, 'Why don't you go for it, you were a yellow card up, you were so good from five metres out. Why wouldn't you? It is typical, you are so conservative...'

"So in the end, the outcome determines whether your decisions were right or wrong.

"In hindsight, should we have gone for the posts? Because we lost, maybe we should have. But say you go for the posts, successfully. They restart. You go up, they win the ball back, you concede a penalty.

"They kick it over and win the game. Then people will go, ‘Why with a yellow card didn’t you go for the corner?’ Again, the outcome is going to justify whether your decision was correct or not.”