By Derek Foley

Copyright irishmirror

Leinster’s was an outstanding URC campaign last season, 16 wins and two defeats — by a single point away to Bulls in January and by three points away to Scarlets in April — in the league proper.

Followed up by solid quarter-final and semi-final outings wins over Scarlets and Glasgow respectively before a thunderous 32-7 win over Bulls in a one-sided final.

It is no surprise so that they are 8/15 favourites — with Bulls next priced at 9/2, Munster and Sharks 8/1, 14/ bar — to retain before a ball has been kicked.

“Leinster are a team that are always going to be under pressure because they set such a high bar for themselves,” notes former Blues star Ian Madigan.

“Because I think quite often they’re measured in a successful season or an unsuccessful season on whether they win the Champions Cup or not and they’ve obviously fallen short in that competition over the last six or seven years.

“But there’s other ways of measuring success that Leinster have consistently surpassed and that’s ensuring that they’re getting home knockout games in Europe.

“Whether it’s the Champions Cup Last 16, quarters, semis or the URC and a home quarter-final, semi-final and last year, a final, being at home has a significant impact on revenue for the following year and the year after.”

To be fair, it is something Leinster have delivered on consistently.

“That’s what has given them the luxury of being able to sign players such as Jordie Barrett and RG Snyman and, this year, Rieko Ioane.

“And you also look at Leinster bringing young players through the squad, Academy players getting capped, Academy players progressing onto Development contracts and Development players transitioning to full time contracts — Leinster have the deepest squad in the URC as a result of that.

“Winning is a habit and it was a big positive for them winning the URC last year and how they performed in that final in particular will give them real confidence heading into the knockout stages of the Champions Cup next season.”

The Blues don’t just have the best squad, they have the best coaching ticket, Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber backed up by Robin McBryde and Tyler Bleyendaal.

“I’d have full confidence in the Leinster coaching ticket this year and I’d be very excited about Leinster’s defence. It was a point of difference for them for large parts of the season last year.

“That high press is something that Ireland should look to bring into their own systems and if they are to challenge for the World Cup in 2027 I think using that high press could be their point of difference.”

It is a club, though, that has acquired a ‘glitchy’ reputation in knockout games, so last season’s title win should settle them down again.

“They have been a little unfortunate, you look at the moments that haven’t gone their way in the last few years, in a great position at half-time against La Rochelle, then in arguably the best final we’ve ever seen, against Toulouse, they lose in extra-time.

“Then being caught on the hop against Northampton, when, arguably their best chance to win it was last year with the Antoine Dupont injury and Bordeaux, who’d never made the final before, making the final and going on and winning it.

“They will have been disappointed with their performance in that semi-final against Northampton and I wouldn’t put that down to luck. I think their defence in particular, on the day, were they conceded more than double the average points that they would have conceded throughout the rest of the season, which was very much an outlier as regards a poor, poor defending performance.

“If they’re to win the Champions Cup this year, their defence will play a large part in that and it was particularly interesting hearing Nienaber speaking at the end of the season and talking about the additional layers that he’s going to add.”

Leinster went through to January last season undefeated across all competitions and that’s not going to be as easy this time.

“They have a very tough start to the season, three South African teams first up, the first two away against the Stormers and Bulls and then they have the Sharks at home.

“So how they perform and hit the ground running there is very important because they had the luxury last year of being able to rotate their squad in the final stages of the season, of keeping guys fresh for the knockouts — you only get that if you perform well at the start of the season.”

The South African clubs will be a collective threat

“I think the South African teams are really strong and I’d expect probably three of the four South African teams to finish in the top eight.

“Couple that with most likely Glasgow also finishing in the top eight. I think Benetton will be very competitive again this year. So then you’re left with the likes of Edinburgh, Munster, Connacht, Ulster competing for the remaining spots in the top eight.

A lot will depend on how quickly Munster can settle under their new New Zealand coach Clayton McMillan.

His relevant club experience is as Head Coach at Chiefs 2021-25, where he had a 72.53 per cent win ratio, finishing fifth, third, second and fourth culminating in becoming 2025 champions.

“Munster, with Clayton McMillan coming in off the back of a Super Rugby win has the potential to be an outstanding appointment and they played well against Bath in Cork last week, for the first hour certainly.

“They’ll want to be reaching the knockout phase of the Champions Cup and doing all that they can to finish in the top four of the URC.

“Because we’ve seen in recent years that if you don’t finish in the top four, it’s very difficult to win the competition.”

Meanwhile the return of Stuart Lancaster to Ireland is great news on so many fronts- for Connacht, for Ireland, for the URC.His tracksuit coaching, understanding and steady manner had him held in astonishingly high regard from the internationals down to the academy at Leinster – quite an achievement at such a hierarchical club.Says Madigan: “Capturing Stuart Lancaster was a great piece of business, he’s very highly regarded from his time in Leinster.”If he can bring the consistency to Connacht’s game that they didn’t have last year, they never really got momentum into their season, they weren’t able to back up good performances, it will be good.”They’ll have been disappointed with their performance in the inter pros, having not won any of those important derby games.”I think his blueprint, game plan, style of play, how the team will be training will be really clear and players will have total clarity of what’s expected of them and I’d expect him to have a really positive impact immediately.”Actually, they start with Benetton at home and then they have two games against Welsh opposition in Scarlets and Cardiff.”They are three very winnable games and if they can get their tails up and get momentum into their season early, there’s no reason why they can’t be competing in the top eight.

Ulster might be the 2025/26 surprise packets following on from what was tough going last season, Richie Murphy’s first as head coach.A five-try pre-season win over Edinburgh, with Jack Murphy at no10, Jude Postlethwaite and David McCann impressing, suggests they may be ready to hit the ground running.”Ulster will definitely be looking to turn a poor season around having finished 14th, I’d imagine they’ll be setting a goal, at a minimum, to finish in the top eight and to have a real run at the Challenge Cup.”Richie Murphy is a good coach and you would expect him to have an effect now he is well settled in and the two marquee signings they’ve made, Angus Bell (prop from Waratahs) and Juarno Augustus (back-row from Northampton), will make a big difference in getting the team back over the gain-line.

“One key will be getting their kind of early-to-mid 20s players back playing to the best of their ability. The likes of Tom O’Toole, Tom Stewart, James Hume, Rob Balacoune that either through injury or loss of form last year didn’t play to the potential they’d shown in previous seasons.

“For Ulster to be competing in the top eight they need all of those guys to be playing at the very best of their ability.”