Leinster coach Nienaber unconcerned about Ulster loss, urges patience

Jacques Nienaber isn't too worried about the defensive frailties that cost Leinster against Ulster last week.

The visitors recorded just a third win in 22 attempts at the RDS as they held on for a 22-21 BKT URC victory over Leo Cullen’s league leaders.

All three Ulster tries came off the back of kicks from Billy Burns as Dan McFarland and his coaches successfully negated Leinster’s defensive linespeed.

While the hosts had chances to claim a win, the fact that Ulster got over the line narrowed the focus on defence specialist Nienaber’s influence since coming on board at the end of November.

"It’s not the first time that teams have done that, I promise you," said the former South Africa head coach, who helped the Springboks to back-to-back World Cup wins.

"At international level, New Zealand [do it]. Richie Mo'unga and the Barretts, they went in for that space often.

"Playing against Finn Russell, that’s his skillset so when we play against Scotland it was a space that they went into to.

"Yeah, from a defensive point of view you can’t cover the whole field, it’s impossible so there’s always areas of space that you will leave open. Hats off to Ulster, they really attacked the space well.

"They fully deserved to get that. It’s something we will have to improve on as a group and six weeks into layering in a system, something that’s new.

"Probably, if you want results, having consistent team selection would be the easiest way but you always want to try and balance performance, which is winning, and making squad depth and giving opportunities to players.

"You also want to evolve your squad. We try and give guys opportunities while layering in a new defence system. It’s a nice challenge to the group and they are responding quite well."

Nex