Having made some unwanted history in Cape Town last week, Leinster will be looking to avoid another ugly landmark in Pretoria today.
Last week's 35-0 drubbing away to the Stormers was the first time the province were kept scoreless in a URC game since 2008, as Leo Cullen’s side capitulated in the second half, conceding 29 unanswered points.
The second game of their South African tour now brings them to Pretoria for a renewal of their tasty rivalry with the Bulls (5.30pm).
In seven previous United Rugby Championship meetings, the Bulls have the edge 4-3, although Leinster did win the most recent of those clashes in last season’s Grand Final at Croke Park.
With three of their previous meetings coming in play-off games, this rivalry has taken on a real edge, and while Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann is new to the league, his players will be salivating at the prospect of handing Leinster a second defeat to begin the campaign.
You’d have to go back to 2003 for the last time the province began their season with back-to-back losses. That season, Gary Ella’s side were beaten 15-8 by Munster, and then 29-22 by the Celtic Warriors, the fifth Welsh franchise which was disbanded at the end of the campaign.
Of course, their most famous poor start came in 2010/11 when they dropped three of their first four games under new head coach Joe Schmidt, before reaching the league final later that year and winning the Champions Cup.
Coaches often say that they put more value on performance than result, and Leinster’s meeting with the Bulls this evening is occasion where that really is true.
🗣️ "They didn't lose out narrowly to a very good team, they got destroyed by a team that are probably above average..."@jonnyholland10 and @bernardjackman look back on how Stormers's kicking game destroyed Leinster. 🌪️
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) October 1, 2025
Full pod: https://t.co/4lXd2tUVF3 pic.twitter.com/7eLvws3Djt
Given the difficulty most teams have winning in South Africa, you take what you can get on these tours, and Leinster will still be expected to be towards the top quarter of the table by the time Round 18 rolls around in the summer. But considering how badly they were beaten by the Stormers a week ago, a response to that thrashing is needed, even for appearances sake.
Leinster have become used to fast starts in the season. Last season they won 12 game before their first defeat in the URC. The season before, they were beaten on the opening weekend before winning their next seven. The 2022/23 season started with 15 consecutive victories.
Those fast starts have been helped by the fact that in the first four seasons of the modern URC, each of Leinster's previous visits to South Africa have come after the Six Nations, by which point they are sitting comfortably among the top seeds. Even before the campaign, Cullen suggested that his side might be able to feel the benefit of their early-season tour of South Africa at the back end of this season.
All things considered, losing to the Bulls would be palatable this weekend, but only if their opponents have to work for their win.
Leinster can point to 15 players being unavailable due to the Lions tour, injury and Rugby Championship, but unlike previous South African tours where their squad has been relying on academy players, this is a largely experienced Leinster group.
Rabah Slimani and Robbie Henshaw(above) are Test veterans while Ryan Baird, Luke McGrath, Sam Prendergast, Jordan Larmour, Max Deegan, Will Connors, Tommy O’Brien and Jimmy O’Brien all have ample big-game experience.
The Leinster coaching team will have had their hands full this week, with almost every element of their game needing repairs off the back of last week’s performance.
The pack were bullied, particularly at setpieces. Most teams would consider eight penalties to be the upper limit of what they would like to be conceding in a game, but that’s what Leinster gave up at the scrum alone. In total, they were penalised 16 times, and saw two players yellow-carded, allowing the Stormers score four second half tries.
Their lineout had an official return of nine from 12, 75% overall, but that figure paints a deceptive picture, with the Stormers disrupting several of the throws that Leinster, statistically speaking, retained, and as a result they couldn't use that as a launchpad for their attack.
While the forwards struggled, the backs also played their part in a full-court collapse, with the Stormers dominating Larmour, Tommy O’Brien and Jimmy O’Brien in the air, while aside from a couple of nice kicks, Prendergast never got the Leinster backline moving.
In response, Cullen has made seven changes to his side in a bid to shake things up.
He’s been able to bring one of his Lions crew into the side, with Thomas Clarkson (above) available to start, and the tighthead prop will be hoping he can put in a similar shift to his last outing in a Leister shirt, when he put in a destructive scrummaging performance against the Bulls in the URC final.
That game was Clarkson’s finest for the province, but he’ll be packing down alongside Gus McCarthy and Paddy McCarthy this weekend, rather than Dan Sheehan and Andrew Porter.
Cullen has opted for more experience in the pack. Baird moves to second row alongside Brian Deeny, which allows Deegan and Connors start in the back row, and he will hope Deegan can extend his influence to the lineout.
As much as Leinster are without their big-name players, so too are the Bulls. Six of Leinster’s starting team today also did so in the URC final, but similarly, only seven of this Bulls side started at Croke Park in June.
Wilco Louw, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Ruan Nortje, Marco van Staden and Canan Moodie are in Rugby Championship action for the Springboks, while Akker van der Merwe, Cobus Wiese, Elrigh Louw, Cameron Hanekom, Johan Goosen and Kurt-Lee Arendse are among a lengthy injury list.
The Bulls had a bonus-point start to the season last week, but their 53-40 win against the Ospreys had as many negatives as it did positives, and leaving Pretoria with something – even just bonus-points – is a realistic expectation for Leinster.
They don’t need to win, but they do need a performance.
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