Leinster say they have not been approached and remain in the dark about whether Stuart Lancaster is moving to Racing 92 at the end of the season.
There is a job available at Racing as Laurent Travers is moving up to Director of Rugby. But Leinster Head Coach Leo Cullen insisted this remains in the realm of ‘speculation’ as far as the club is concerned.
“We talk all the time, always during the season,” said Cullen following RDS training this morning. “You think you are coming to the start of the season but everyone is always making plans for the future, that’s players and staff and the backroom team as well.
Read next: Stuart Lancaster for Racing link grows stronger as Leinster brace for the worst
“So it is like the ‘silly’ season is there, always, up until a point where things get finalised.
“So we are in a period of speculation, shall we say, and we can’t comment on other people’s speculation, if you know what I mean, but there has always been things going on in the background.”
French sources talking of the approach to Lancaster have suggested Travers has yet to finalise the details of what his director of rugby role with entail.
That, in turn, would delay the formal offering of a job as Head coach to prospective candidates. It is a situation expected to change before or over the weekend.
Continued Cullen: “The reality is there is lots of other clubs who look at the talent, whether that is players or coaches, we have and that is something we have to deal with all of the time and people make different decisions at different stages
“And we are trying to talk about one person specifically who has been and amazing since he came into Leinster.
“We are very lucky that we have a very strong group, some great people in our building and that’s credit to a lot of the work that goes on over the last number of years so we are very lucky in that regard.”
Lancaster has ben with Leinster since 2016, thrown a lifeline by the Irish province following England’s disastrous RWC2015 for which he was Head Coach.
In one sense, Leinster have always feared they could lose a coach of whom current and former Leinster players speak so highly of.
Were the club looking for a reference, former Racing out-half Johnny Sexton would have been an easy phone call for the French club.
“You need to deal with all these cases individually,” continued Cullen. “Just the nature of it, like, generally people are signing for not much longer than two years.
“So it is always, every year fifty per cent of your coaching and playing and coaching are off contract sand you just have to go though with that and you know that’s part of the evolution of teams, never stays the same.
“You know, we say it towards the end of every season where you are coming to the end of the season but that group is never going to be the same again.”
Leinster had to ‘replace’ two coaches ahead of this season.
“If you think, Denis Leamy is now down there coaching at Munster.
“Felipe is now involved with coaching Argentina during the Rugby Championship and there are other players who have already started their careers in other teams.
“We had lads playing for Connacht up in Ravenhill last week and a couple of lads I see running out in Exeter jerseys as well so that’s just part and parcel of the business we are in.”
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