Dec 24,2024
If the URC decision-makers thought that switching up the Christmas schedule so that not having a St Stephen's or New Year's Day game would make the holiday period easier to navigate then Mack Hansen gave them another idea.
The interpro derbies, even with the intrusion of IRFU player-management policies, have always served up enough talking points to garner attention.
But, after a seemingly non-stop year and a half of rugby, the spread of matches over the festive period seemed more player and fan-friendly with full-on preparation for games on 26 December and 1 January off the cards.
Hansen's outburst has lent another dimension to two remaining clashes.
After losing 20-12 to Leinster, and feeling mightily aggrieved, Connacht must lift themselves for a tie against an Ulster side reeling from the pain of conceding a late winner to Munster.
"It is an incredibly important game," Connacht boss Pete Wilkins said of the Galway meeting against an Ulster side who are only below the Westerners on points difference in the table.
"It is about finding a balance for us. That nagging frustration and 'what if' that we will carry out of this game and bring back along the motorway.
"It is important that we don’t let go of that and that, while we might have ran out of minutes [against Leinster], that we pick up where we left off and unload some of that frustration on our next opponents.
"That said, we also can’t spend half of the next week processing, we have to get over it pretty quickly because we train Monday and Tuesday, couple of days for Christmas and then in for a captain’s run.
"As I said to the players there, remember that frustration. We certainly don’t lack for fire in the belly in those contests with Ulster and nor do they in return. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves."
Leinster, meanwhile, have won ten out of ten games in the season so far and on Friday face a Munster outfit, under interim head coach Ian Costello, who are desperate to find some consistency.
Friday's hard-fought win in Belfast followed a loss to Castres and a victory over Stade in the Champions Cup.
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On the work-life balance for his squad, Leo Cullen said: "For the lads it’s try and recover and some of the guys coming back in who have had some time off, they just need to get back up to speed because you take a week off you need to turn it back on again.
"Then we all need to know that we are in the moment. So, if you are off you are off enjoying family time and your loved ones, that’s important.
"It’s about getting that balance right.
"There is no point training when you are thinking about family time and when you are in family time thinking about training because you need to be in the moment of what you are doing.
"It’s the skill at this time of year. It’s easy to say, it's so much harder to do it. It will always be a great occasion regardless.
"Quite often it comes down to the preparation leading into these games.
"Thinking back to a couple of games where we might have struggled, where a couple of things haven’t gone our way and you are in the game, and it has this snowball effect.
"When you prepare well, start well in the game down there, then you can exert some of the dominance and put the opposition under pressure.
"So, that’s very 101. Saying it is the easy part doing it, as I said, is the hard part."
Leinster lead the United Rugby Championship on 38 points after eight rounds, six clear of Glasgow, while Friday's opponents Munster sit sixth on 21 points with four wins and four losses to their name.
Connacht and Ulster are both on 18 points, in 10th and 11th, respectively, with five losses and three defeats each.
