Leo Cullen has expressed his delight at signing on for an eight year as Leinster boss – but admitted he wouldn’t stand in Felipe Contepomi’s way if he was offered the Argentina hot seat.
Cullen signed another one year rolling contract this week and, speaking today ahead of the RDS clash with Ospreys tomorrow, the 44-year-old said: “I’m delighted, it’s a great honour to be asked again to do it.
“When you’re doing it for a while you always want to make sure everyone is doing things for the right reasons. It was an easy conversation, thankfully.
“We’re in the middle of a pretty busy block, it’s something that’s been there in the background and a huge thanks to everyone involved.
“We’ve lots to look forward to at the moment.”
His attack coach Contepomi, who is also a former Leinster team-mate, has been linked with the Pumas job following Mario Ledesma’s decision to step down from the post.
Cullen says that he would understand if Contepomi was offered the role and felt it was too good to reject.
“Of course, but there will always be some level of turnover, and when opportunities come along, particularly international coaches, of course you want to see people progress,” stated the Blues supremo.
“I generally wouldn’t stand in anyone’s way.
“That’s just the nature of it, we’re operating at provincial and club level, when some of these international opportunities come up, look at John Fogarty as an example off with the national team.
“Whoever that is in the backroom team, from athletic performance and medical point of view, it’s similar, we celebrate guys when they move on.
“We talk to all the coaches, not just Felipe.
“We’re lucky that we have a strong group here, there has been speculation and links with Stuart (Lancaster), Robin (McBryde) and Felipe, Denis Leamy is making his way in the senior group as a coach, there will always be that little bit of speculation.
“I talk to the guys all the time, and there’s some great people there. When jobs come up, particularly when they’re linked… as Felipe said, there are three Argentinian coaches in Europe, so it’s a short list, and he happens to be one of them.
“I think it’s natural he’ll be linked to the job.
“Plus, he had tonnes of experience as a player and is improving all the time as a coach.
“We’re very, very lucky to have him. There are always decisions to be made behind the scenes, but I like to think he’s pretty happy here as well.”
James Lowe makes his return from injury, having missed out on the first two rounds of the Six Nations.
The winger is on the bench along with hooker Sean Cronin, who is set to make his 200th appearance for Leinster.
“James came back in and was a little bit touch and go,” admitted Cullen.
“We named a starting team earlier and we were seeing how James came through training but he came through OK and is raring to go.
“We’ll see how much action he actually gets but it’s great to have him back.
“Sean Cronin, remarkable. I played a lot with ‘The Nugget’ as he’s more commonly known around here.
“He’s such a popular member of the group over such a long period, although it doesn’t seem so long to me, all goes by in the blink of an eye.
“Two hundred caps, and I don’t know how many he has in some of the other provinces, but he’s such a popular member of the group.
“For me, personally I played with Sean for Leinster and Ireland, shared rooms together back in the day away in camps, and it’s great to see him still going.”
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