Leinster players can cope with mental scars of Toulouse defeat, insists coach Jacques Nienaber

As expected, the mood at Leinster’s UCD base is extremely downbeat in light of last weekend’s heartbreaking defeat to Toulouse, but with Connacht to come at the RDS on Friday night, they must quickly shift their focus.

Leinster hope to welcome back co-captain Garry Ringrose from a long-term shoulder injury, as Nienaber downplayed concerns that losing another European final may leave scar tissue for this season and beyond.

“I can’t think that it would because you work, you get into a final and sometimes you win them and sometimes you lose them, and it is what it is,” Nienaber said.

“Does it build up a question of a mental scar? I don’t know, and my personal take is when the past comes knocking on the door don’t even open it because the past has nothing new to tell you anyway.

“It’s going to tell you that you lost a previous final and it’s got no bearing on what happens tomorrow or the day after. The past is the past and it’s done.

“So I would hope that it wouldn’t [leave a scar] because it doesn’t. I mean the fact that you had a good game in a World Cup final in 2019 doesn’t mean you’re going to have a good World Cup final in 2023, it’s got nothing to do with it. You have to perform.

“So me personally, I don’t see that and I’d tell that to the players. If the past comes knocking don’t open the door because it’s got nothing new to tell you anyway.”

Meanwhile, Nienaber said that Hugo Keenan may not be available for Leinster’s URC run-in after the full-back linked up with the Ireland sevens squad ahead of this weekend’s World Series Grand Final in Madrid in preparation for a crack at the Olympics in Paris this summer.