Jacques Nienaber has been lauded for his impact in ratcheting up Leinster’s defence, but the two-time world champion coach emphasises the role of incisive attack in winning games.

Nienaber joined Leo Cullen’s backroom staff as senior coach after the Springboks’ 2023 World Cup triumph, and his fingerprints were all over Leinster’s defence as the Irish giants did not concede a single point in hammering Glasgow Warriors in Dublin last week to reach the Investec Champions Cup semi-finals.

No one has been granted access to the scoreboard by Leinster since their two-match Vodacom URC tour of South Africa, where they went down 21-20 at Loftus Versfeld and won 10-7 at Kings Park. Restored to full strength on their return, Leinster blanked Harlequins 62-0 to book this Champions Cup quarter-final where they crushed Glasgow, the URC defending champions.

However, quoted in the buildup to Leinster’s URC derby clash against Ulster on Saturday, Nienaber said, “I’m more happy about the points scored than the points conceded. You can’t win games with not conceding, you must win games by scoring.

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“People always make a comment, they say ‘defence wins titles’, but you can’t win a title on defence,” he added. “If you can’t score points, you’ll never win a game. You’ll only at best have a draw. 

“If you put a score on the scoreboard, your defence must be good enough to try and combat, and defend that score. Defence can’t win you games, it can lose you games.”

Nienaber also revealed he rarely tracks the scoreline during matches, focusing instead on tactical developments play-by-play.

“I don’t even know what the score is, to be honest,” he said. “You’ll check it, but you kind of go from play-to-play thinking, from my view, what tactically they’re trying to do.

“In the World Cup final in 2019, I remember Rassie [Erasmus] said he wants to put on our last sub, so I said ‘hang on, what’s the score, isn’t it risky?’ I think he gave him nine minutes and they said ‘no, the score is like 25-12’ [I said] OK, no it’s fine!’”

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