{"id":978648,"date":"2026-05-22T22:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/978648\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T22:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:47:24","slug":"bernard-jackman-leinster-lobbied-the-urc-to-improve-champions-cup-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/978648\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Jackman: Leinster ‘lobbied the URC’ to improve Champions Cup hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Leinster are finding their form at just the right time after successfully getting their South African tour moved to the start of the season, according to Bernard Jackman.<\/b><\/p>\n

Since the inception of the United Rugby Championship in 2021, the Irish giants have made their trip to the Republic in either March or April, which is right around the time of the Investec Champions Cup knockouts.<\/p>\n

That was until the 2025\/26 campaign when Leo Cullen\u2019s men started the URC<\/a> with away games against the Stormers and the Bulls.<\/p>\n

Although Leinster<\/a> succumbed to successive defeats, forcing them to play catch-up for the rest of the league season, it got the difficult trip out of the way early.<\/p>\n

Leinster\u2019s request to the URC<\/p>\n

Jackman<\/a> claimed that the province requested to the URC organisers \u2018quite strongly\u2019 that their trip to South Africa was moved to earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterestingly, I know that Leinster had lobbied the URC quite strong for at least a season, maybe two seasons, that they didn\u2019t want to go to South Africa when they had been going to South Africa,\u201d he told the RTE Rugby Podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you remember, Leinster always got a fast start and then the frontliners stayed at home leading into knockout rugby to prepare for that, and that\u2019s not good to split your squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand completely why they did it (split their squad) as putting mileage on your best players at a time when most of them have already played a Six Nations, November series and helped you qualify for those knockout stages (can harm your chances).\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Easter: The \u2018slow strangle\u2019 approach Leinster must adopt against Bordeaux-Begles and the battle I feel is a \u2018tall order\u2019 for Leo Cullen\u2019s men<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Leinster did not get their campaign off to a good start, losing three of their opening four league matches, but they finished the regular season strong and ended up second in the table behind Glasgow Warriors.<\/p>\n

Without the distraction of having to go to South Africa, Cullen\u2019s side have built nicely heading into the Champions Cup<\/a> final and will look to win their first continental title since 2018 when they face Bordeaux-Begles on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Leinster \u2018look better for it\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that they got the URC to commit to change it to early in the season has meant that they were changing league position for a while, but effectively the two losses that they\u2019ve had traditionally a little bit later happened at the start,\u201d Jackman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat did put a bit of pressure on them but it meant that for the last four or five weeks post-Six Nations Leinster have had all the group together and they look better for it.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as\u00a0a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there were seven starters that started against the Ospreys but they looked like a team that were very cohesive. The ones who didn\u2019t play played the previous week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been at home, got the points and now they\u2019re the second seed in the URC. They will worry about that afterwards and they won\u2019t fear anyone in the URC regardless of it they have to go away in the final.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow they can play Bordeaux in Bilbao, go in there with a bit of momentum, a bit of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Leinster v Bordeaux-Begles: Investec Champions Cup Final team news, predictions, match officials and how to watch<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster are finding their form at just the right time after successfully getting their South African tour moved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":978649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4102],"tags":[225,191668,4306,12,4151,2196,79,16,15,4510],"class_list":["post-978648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-home-page","tag-investec-champions-cup","tag-leinster","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116620666480397525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}