Leinster Head Coach Leo Cullen says the province have put a tough few weeks behind them and with win a win over Edinburgh secure, they are ready to face Munster next weekend.
Leinster won their first two games of the Pro14 campaign, but then endured a rocky spell in South Africa playing the two new teams in the competition - Southern Kings and Cheetahs.
Before the tour to the Southern Hemisphere even started, Jamison Gibson-Park and Isa Nacewa were refused entry to South Africa because they didn’t have the correct visas.
Ireland prop Cian Healy was then put off a flight before take-off for not turning off his laptop and Leisnter followed up their convincing win over the Kings with a 38-19 loss to Cheetahs.
So Cullen was happy to get back to home comforts, beat Edinburgh 21-13 and now he’s ready to move onto the next challenge - Munster at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday.
"We played on Friday, a lot of guys didn’t get back from South Africa until Monday and didn’t train until Wednesday," said Cullen, speaking to RTÉ sport in the wake of the RDS win.
"The guys that were away, it was important that we had a bit of time to recover and then we had some guys preparing for their fist game of the season, so it was doubly difficult, but that’s not an excuse. We know we need to be better and we’ll work hard on being better.
"We’ll have to be better for the challenge that awaits. It’ll be tough, but obviously playing on Friday lads can have a bit of time off over the weekend.
"We can get a good training week and it’ll be the first time in three weeks that we’ll have all the lads together in the group preparing for a game so that’s really positive.
"We’ve had some tough things to encounter over the first few weeks of the season, but we’re through it now. We’re into a period of huge games and hopefully we get a huge crowd in the Aviva on Saturday for a great occasion."
Munster take on Cardiff Blues at Thomond Park on Saturday and then it’s the first red versus blue clash of the new Pro14 season.
Cullen knows there’s a lot to work on following the Edinburgh game, but he was happy to get the right result.
"It was a very tough game and as we discussed before the game, any team coached by Richard Cockerill are going to have a tough, physical edge," he explained.
"They are very, very competitive and it was always going to be a challenge for us with limited preparation, with a lot of guys coming back in for their first game.
"We knew it was going to be a tricky challenge, but I thought the players scrambled well, covered hard for each other in defence. There were a lot of things we can get better on."
