It has been interesting to monitor the conversations surrounding Leinster this season.
Having attended a number of their press conferences over the last few months, the questions from the press have been just as interesting as the answers from the players and the staff.
At the start of the season a question would be posed to a player like Isa Nacewa, a frequent nominee for media duties in Leinster camp, along the lines of ‘there’s a lot of depth in the back three this season, how good has that been for creating competition?’
A few weeks pass and that shallowness soon turns to a player like Dan Leavy.
‘How do you make the most of the opportunity to start given that there’s so much depth in your position?’
The question already irritates him and we’re less than four months into a new campaign.
“It’s really competitive – it drives the standards. Every time you get an opportunity to wear the jersey you’ve got to take it,” said Leavy after Leinster’s win over Munster last month.
“And I’ve said it about a million times now at this stage, and all the other lads have said it, so I’m delighted. So, we’ve got two more games in the next ten days. It’s hugely competitive.”
A few more weeks pass and a new variation of the question is posed to Nacewa – ‘is this the deepest the squad has ever been in your time at the club?’ – which inevitably then sparks a wider conversation of ‘is this the best team the club has ever had?’
That’s what happens when you win 16 out of 18 games. That’s the type of narrative that emerges when you have 30 internationals.
That’s the conversation that is had around offices, pubs and grandstands when you add James Lowe, Jordan Larmour, Max Deegan and Scott Fardy to a team that scored 129 tries in 31 games last season, and a side that is already on pace to eclipse that mark this season should they make both the PRO12 and Champions Cup finals.
Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster’s current charges have more internationals and are on pace to score more tries, and potentially win more games, than the Heineken Cup winning teams of 2009, 2011 and 2012, but of course, the pivotal difference between those teams and the Leinster team of today is that those teams actually won competitions.
Between 2008 and 2014, Leinster won three Heineken Cups, three Pro12 titles and one European Challenge Cup.
The current side are a better team to watch than any of those sides, they score more tries with a wider array of internationals, and have players in Larmour and Lowe who are certainly international caliber, but unless they win, they can’t lay claim to being the best side in the club’s history, a tag that they certainly have the potential to claim.
There may not be one particular back on this team that is individually better than a Brian O’Driscoll, or a forward that is as dominant as Rocky Elsom was in 2009, but as a collective, the current crop are deeper and score more tries than any of the other great Leinster sides.
The Blues are prohibitive favourites to win both the Champions Cup and PRO12 title this season, and when Joey Carbery is your waterboy for a must-win Champions Cup clash, and the likes of Cian Healy, Rob Kearney, Dan Leavy and Andrew Porter are coming off the bench, they have no reason not to deliver on that tag.
Whether it’s a defensive collapse in last year’s PRO12 semi-final agaisnt the Scarlets, or a shellshocked performance against Clermont in last year’s Champions Cup semi-final, Leinster have no excuse not to deliver this season with the players they’ve added and the experience they’ve gained.
When you have a team that is on pace to win more games, a squad that has more internationals, and a side that can score more tries than any of the club’s three European Cup winning sides, there must be an expectation on this side to deliver.
Anything less than silverware this season will be an abject failue given their strength and depth.
Leinster have been widely lauded for the sheer number of talented players that they have within their ranks, and they have garnered even greater praise for the standard of player they are producing on a yearly basis, but with those plaudits comes an added expectation to win.
Leinster have strength in numbers, more so than they ever have had before, but they will be judged ultimately on the number of trophies they lift, not on the number of tries they score or the number of internationals they send cheques to every month.
They are blessed with talent but burdened by potential.
