‘I went and studied my a**e off’ – Jacques Nienaber explains why he was on sideline as he pinpoints Leinster’s failures

A wide range of issues were touched on, including Leinster’s strategy to go for the corner rather than take some of the three points on offer, with Nienaber getting more and more passionate as the conversation wore on.

The pain and frustration were writ large on the South African’s face, which became increasingly animated when we asked what the thinking was behind him leaving the coaching box in favour of the sideline for the second half.

Clearly, Nienaber was extremely frustrated by some of the commentary around him carrying the water for the second half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with the Toulouse bench not happy with what they appeared to think was Leinster bending the rules.

Nienaber was keen to set the record straight outlining how he wanted to “nip it in the bud as quickly as possible”, as he explained how Leinster had sought permission from tournament organisers EPCR to be on the sideline, as he is not the head coach.

“I don’t come from a coaching background,” Nienaber said. “I didn’t have the physical attributes to become a top-end rugby player, but God gave me brains, so I wanted to be involved in rugby and I went and studied my a**e off to become a physio and then through that I transitioned into S&C and then into becoming a defence coach and it almost feels to me now Leinster and Jacques are trying to bail out the system. I’m not!

“I don’t understand why people think I’m trying, or we’re trying to, play the rules. There’s nothing sinister in it.

“It’s just my route to becoming a coach was different from other coaches and I don’t understand why I should be penalised by that and why people think there’s something sinister, there’s nothing sinister.”

Ultimately, Nienaber’s influence from the touchline wasn’t enough to get Leinster over the line, as he pinpointed the three key areas he felt his side fell short in.

“You try and look at it as unemotional as possible, and there’s a lot of things, but I think there’s probably three things that stand out,” he maintained.

“The first one is did you win the game? No. That’s the biggest thing and the most important one. Then the second one I would say was our discipline, but not necessarily discipline, as in giving penalties away, but discipline in terms of keeping continuity with ball in hand. We gave too many turnovers away.

“And then the third is continuity, our breakdown, and credit should probably go to Toulouse and how they slowed our ball down, so we struggled to generate consistent quick ball, especially when we got into their 22. Those are the three glaring issues I would say.”

The debate around Leinster’s decision to turn down kickable shots at goal, which was in direct comparison to Toulouse, continues to rage on, but Nienaber believes that narrative has been overplayed.

“I saw people saying something about nine kickable penalties and I went through every single one,” he said.

“I think we talk about four penalties [that might have been kickable], and from those four, one was on the 15, one was probably 10 metres from the touchline and the other two were on the five or in the 5m, between the touchline and the 5m, which there, you back the captain and the kicker to have a chat and say, ‘Listen, how do you feel for this one?’ Then, they must make a call.

“If we went for poles and missed, people will say, like two years ago when Leinster played La Rochelle and they were too conservative, why didn’t they go to touch?

“If you lose, it doesn’t matter what you say after because your decision-making was wrong because the outcome wasn’t positive.”

The post-mortem is well underway, but you get the sense that it will take a while longer before the normal buzz returns to Leinster HQ.