Cullen pleased with 'scrappy' victory against Sharks

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen says the result far outweighed performance, as his side eased to what he described as a "scrappy" BKT United Rugby Championship quarter-final win against the Cell C Sharks at the Aviva Stadium.

The top-seed Leinster kept their drive for a URC and European double alive with a 35-5 win against the South Africans, who never looked like causing an upset.

Even with the visitors taking an early lead after a Grant Williams try, Leinster quickly responded through Caelan Doris, and after building out a comfortable 21-5 half time lead, they eased their way through to the last four.

"Pleased to be through, it was a bit of a stop-start game I thought," said Cullen.

"The Sharks started well, and had a lot of intent in their play which we knew they would have.

"We settled down, Caelan got in for a good try and they lost Mapimpi to the sin-bin at the same time which is a double whammy for them. We scored a couple of other good tries in the first half."

With nine changes from last week's 41-22 win against Toulouse in the Champions Cup semi-final, Leinster never hit the same heights as they did against the French side, but Cullen (below) says it was understandable that they didn't hit top gear in a game that was littered with lengthy delays.

"It was a pretty low ball in play time overall I think in the game, there was scrums, resets at the scrums and it was messy. There were a few drizzly showers as well which made it difficult to play at times. Overall we're pleased, pleased to be though.

"There was always a chance our team this week would lack a little bit of cohesion. We're pleased with how they applied themselves this week. It’s always hard, the dynamic of you play in a semi-final of the Champions Cup and then