FINAL FALLOUT: While Leinster coaches battle the media, the Stormers smell blood in Dublin

The Stormers arrived in Dublin for their United Rugby Championship semifinal against a Leinster club in something resembling a crisis.

In professional sport you need to take any edge you can to win, especially away from home. With that in mind, the Stormers will be privately pleased at the apparent fallout between Leinster’s coaching staff and the media following the Irish side’s Champions Cup final defeat against Bordeaux Bègles.

Leinster, who are the current United Rugby Championship (URC) champions, have made no bones that winning the Champions Cup is their No 1 priority.

The URC title is not as prized in Dublin as being the European champions. While that ambition is laudable, it comes with an inevitable backlash when it continually fails.

Since 2019, Leinster have played in five Champions Cup finals, including the 2026 final against Bordeaux in Bilbao on 23 May, and lost all of them.

The margin and manner of defeat have gone down in Dublin about as well as a glass of water drunk directly from the Liffey.

The rancour stemming from an agitated media has become louder, leading to head coach Leo Cullen having some terse exchanges with local hacks.

Asked if he was under pressure after a fifth Champions Cup loss in eight years, and the backlash that came with it, Cullen snapped at the reporter: “What are you talking about? What kind of pressure, specifically? I haven’t seen it. What backlash? Specifically. Any Leinster fans specifically? Nobody’s come to my face yet with this.

“I’m not on social media, so you’ll have to explain this one to me. I’m not a fan of social media because I think it’s very negative and toxic; that would be my experience.”

The ill-feeling has spread even further with former Bok coach Jacques Nienaber, who is Leinster’s “senior coach”, in a row with the Irish media, while also revealing that he might not be receiving all the support he’d like at the club.

Nienaber has regularly been scapegoated by the Irish media when Leinster lose and given scant praise when they win.

His high-press defensive style has been criticised as undermining the Irish way, with some pundits saying what worked for the Boks does not translate to Irish rugby.

Nienaber seemed to reach boiling point at a press conference earlier this week.

In early 2025, the Irish Independent’s Rúaidhrí O’Connor, a respected rugby writer, wrote that Leinster and Ireland rugby had made a “deal with the devil” by hiring the 2023 World Cup-winning coach.

It’s clearly a statement that has been gnawing away at Nienaber.

“If, like he said, I’m ‘a devil’... So if it’s ac